Skin Color Doesn’t Mean Skin Color

[Teancum]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

This stuff came to mind as I considered the various perspectives on the BoM text's treatment, or apparent treatment, of "skin" color.  Unlike a statute written by a legislature well-versed in English and living in our era, the Book of Mormon purports to be a divinely-administered translation of an abridgement of a large number of ancient texts written by many different authors in different contexts and at different times over the course of about 1,000 years.  Some ambiguity and lack of clarity must be anticipated by the reader.

Given these considerations, we cannot resort to simply applying the text "as written."  We must construe.  We must interpret.  In so doing, the foregoing analysis may be helpful.

So essentially we need a law degree and the ability to use the principles of legal analysis to understand the text.  Even though according to JS, the book is the most correct book there is and we can get closer to God by aiding its preecepts than we can by using any other book.  And for at least 150 years it seems prophets, seers and revelators interpreted the passages about skin and the curse of darkness incorrectly.  I guess they should have attended law school.

Sorry but your approach here seems rather ludicrous and tortured at best.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Boy, what an overused rhetorical maneuver this is.  These days it's borderline cliché.

There is nothing about the Law of Chastity that demonstrated fear or hatred of people with same-sex attraction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Not even you can say this with a straight face, let alone those of us who believe that the Brethren really are prophets and apostles.

And yet here we are in this thread with Latter-day Saints ignoring past doctrine and teachings of those prophets and apostles, as well as reinterpreting the plain language of the scriptures. 

 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Nothing like.

Exactly like

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, Brant Gardner said:

Fascinating response.

1) "Most correct book" was about the doctrinal teachings, not inerrancy. This is a common misinterpretation.

2) LDS leaders have not been trained historians--or textual critics, for that matter. That isn't their professed expertise. There is every reason to understand that they could be influenced by their time and culture. Joseph himself taught against the inerrancy idea--but understood that the members might foster that impression anyway.

3) Obviously, we all react to information in different ways. I see historical evidence quite differently than you do. We get to have our own interpretations. I prefer to base mine on good history and careful textual readings.

I do not mean to be rude, but the hoops apologists seem to jump through to make all the problematic issues in Mormonism "work" is exhausting. I used to do it to. It wore me out and Occam's razor won out on the side that it is highly likely Mormonism is just another man made religion trying to figure things out with little to know involvement from a supernatural being.  But currently I feel like that about all religions and their claims.  I certainly could be wrong though and I do appreciate your patient and kind response to me.

[mfbukowski]

The Genesis Group has collected many quotes how black "skin" refers to the body, but not the spirit.

Look up Darius Gray and the genesis group.

Problem solved. The body is a "garment" to be shed at death.

 

Edited February 21, 2024 by mfbukowski

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

The church moved the goalposts when they published the essays on race and specifically stated:  the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.

Yes I am aware of this. It takes the same approach McConkie took in 1978.  Just fergettabooutittt. But it is nice they used the word disavow.  

 

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

And since then the church has been trying to get members to catch up. 

Well I am not sure the church leadership is talking about this all that much are they?  For example can you find me something from a GA that takes the position @Brant Gardnertakes on the passages under discussion? Or something else from an LDS authority that talks about the passages meaning something else other than skin color?

 

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

Because no one is saying that JS's translation was incorrect.  We are saying that our interpretation of it just needed some work.  BlueDreams has posted a great post on it so I'll just ditto what she has said on the subject.

I appreciated @BlueDreamscomments. I do not agree with them but I can see why she ends up where she did.

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Apostles are “special witnesses of the name of Christ in all the world” (D&C 107:23).  

Ok. So they are no longer sustained as prophets, seers and revelators.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Joseph Smith said: “The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.”

Meh. This is a favorite quote of apologists who want to downplay important issues that are problematic.

 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Collectively, the Brethren have never let us down in regard to their being "special witnesses" and speaking of the foregoing "fundamental principles."

That is a pretty low bar. I guess it helps when trying to defend all the difficulties Mormonism presents.  But it does seem they have a pretty poor track record on the prophets, seers and revelators portion of their calling.

 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Here and there, the Brethren have erred as to "appendages," including about some important - and yet still derivative and secondary - issues.

Here and there? Hardly just here and there. Secondary?  Who decides what is secondary?  That is just a new fashionable apologetic trope from I think an address by a member of the 70 gave at BYU a few years back. Not recalling his name. I had never heard of primary and secondary doctrines before that.  

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I just don't have it in me to judge and condemn 19th-century men, and 20th-century men, for their failings and moral blindspots.  Not when I have so many of my own.  So it's Mormon 9:31 on that.  Outside of it, my assessment of the Brethren is that they are overwhelmingly good and decent and wise people, and good leaders.  They are, in most respects, very trustworthy, and particularly as to their "special witnesses" responsibilities.

Thanks,

-Smac

It is pretty easy to be a special witness to the NAME of Jesus Christ. Almost anybody can do that.  Like I said, that is a pretty low bar.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

There is nothing about the Law of Chastity that demonstrated fear or hatred of people with same-sex attraction.

[Stormin' Mormon]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

I do not mean to be rude, but the hoops apologists seem to jump through to make all the problematic issues in Mormonism "work" is exhausting.

Doesn't mean they're not true, though.  There is no relationship between how exhausting an intellectual exercise is and its veracity.  Learning a foreign language was exhausting.  The college-level calculus classes I took 20+ years ago were exhausting.  The professional certification exam that I recently passed was exhausting.  Understanding the nuances of a culture from 2500 years ago is exhausting.  All are worthwhile endeavors, all are elements in a life spent in the pursuit of truth.  

For every instance when an application of Occam's razor is appropriate, there is an instance when we should have instead applied H.L Mencken's caution: "there is always a well-known solution to every human problem that is neat, plausible, and wrong." Sometimes reality really is messy.  Sometimes reality really does require hoop-jumping in order for it to be understood.  Sometimes problematic issues are problematic because they are laden with layers upon layers of nuance. 

I walked my own faith crisis, nearly a decade back, one that lasted years and years and years.  I applied rationality to my faith and came to a very different conclusion than you did.  I found that it was impossible to apply the tools of rationality without first making value judgements about how evidence should be weighed, let alone WHICH evidence should be weighed in that balance. I respect your path, and honor the intellectual and spiritual integrity that it has required.  But such a path is not the inevitable journey of those who apply rational methodologies to their faith; there are other valid conclusions that will be uncovered in such a journey.

Edited February 21, 2024 by Stormin' Mormon

[Doctor Steuss]

22 hours ago, bluebell said:

As I've heard it explained in regards to this particular option, it was more that the lamanites marked themselves.  Dr. Jan Martin talks a little about it on the Follow Him podcast:

Obviously these explanations are for people who believe the BOM is what it purports to be and are not meant to convince anyone of divine origin.  

I think this explanation, while it has merits on the surface, fails to account for a few items and verses.  For example, God (in Jacob) tells the Nephites that the skin of the Lamanites would be whiter than theirs, when they stood before God, unless they repented.  God also foretold of the curse in 1 Nephi 2:23.  If it's animal skins, then the imagery for the warning for repentance seems odd, and if it was a voluntary wearing of clothes to set themselves apart, then it stops being a curse that God placed on them.  On a theological level though, I guess any curse is ultimately self-imposed at its most basic level.

Taking the Jacob reference in light of the above potential interpretation (I think it's in either Jacob chapter 2, or 3), it would mean that God's warning was that if the Nephites failed to repent, then they would voluntarily put on even darker clothes than the Lamanites were wearing, when they stood before God to be judged.  It could just be me, but that just seems like an incredibly strange reading/interpretation of the verses.

Edited February 21, 2024 by Doctor Steuss

[bluebell]

58 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Yes I am aware of this. It takes the same approach McConkie took in 1978.  Just fergettabooutittt. But it is nice they used the word disavow.  

 

Well I am not sure the church leadership is talking about this all that much are they?  For example can you find me something from a GA that takes the position @Brant Gardnertakes on the passages under discussion? Or something else from an LDS authority that talks about the passages meaning something else other than skin color?

 

I appreciated @BlueDreamscomments. I do not agree with them but I can see why she ends up where she did.

I haven't really looked but I'm guessing that I couldn't find a church leader talking about this at all, from either angle.  This just hasn't been a topic in the church over the pulpit since 1978 that I can see.

[bluebell]

34 minutes ago, Doctor Steuss said:

I think this explanation, while it has merits on the surface, fails to account for a few items and verses.  For example, God (in Jacob) tells the Nephites that the skin of the Lamanites would be whiter than theirs, when they stood before God, unless they repented.  God also foretold of the curse in 1 Nephi 2:23.  If it's animal skins, then the imagery for the warning for repentance seems odd, and if it was a voluntary wearing of clothes to set themselves apart, then it stops being a curse that God placed on them.  On a theological level though, I guess any curse is ultimately self-imposed at its most basic level.

Taking the Jacob reference in light of the above potential interpretation (I think it's in either Jacob chapter 2, or 3), it would mean that God's warning was that if the Nephites failed to repent, then they would voluntarily put on even darker clothes than the Lamanites were wearing, when they stood before God to be judged.  It could just be me, but that just seems like an incredibly strange reading/interpretation of the verses.

What I think is the most important thing to recognize (for me anyway) about this topic is that most of the people that I've read on it (which is not a lot) take each mention of this issue in the BOM as a separate and specific instance and espouse the idea that there isn't one interpretation for 'the mark' or 'skin of blackness' that works for all verses.  From what I've been reading, while some believe that certain mentions are a physical change, others mentions they view as a metaphorical change and not something that physically occurred.

It might also make more sense to think about the curse being separate from the skin of blackness.  The curse is the separation of them from the covenant with God, which is expressed in the end of 2 Ne 5:20 and the beginning of verse 21 (verse breaks did not exist in the first few printings of the BOM but were added later by people trying to be helpful.  This is one instance though where I think the decision to create a verse break where they did made things much worse--

"Inasmuch as they will not hearken unto thy words they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And behold, they were cut off from his presence. And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity."

So the curse foretold in 1 nephi finally comes to pass in 2 nephi.  Repentance would instantly undo the curse (because thank goodness, God is always willing to reinstate the covenant if we decide that's what we want).

And like you said, all curses are essentially self-inflicted.

[Doctor Steuss]

9 minutes ago, bluebell said:

What I think is the most important thing to recognize (for me anyway) about this topic is that most of the people that I've read on it (which is not a lot) take each mention of this issue in the BOM as a separate and specific instance and espouse the idea that there isn't one interpretation for 'the mark' or 'skin of blackness' that works for all verses.  [...]

Thinking about this a bit... From a believing standpoint (I can still channel that old rascally portion of my innards from time-to-time), I think that one way of looking at this would be similar to the way the Bible is viewed.  In other words, the BoM was written by multiple authors, during multiple time periods, for a wide range of differing rhetorical goals based on varying political, religious, and social reasons... and then it went through an "editor" of sorts t'boot. 

Univocality in all aspects of the text would almost be the last thing one should expect (or try to force).

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

The Genesis Group has collected many quotes how black "skin" refers to the body, but not the spirit.

Look up Darius Gray and the genesis group.

Problem solved. The body is a "garment" to be shed at death.

 

And then put back on.

[Danzo]

3 hours ago, pogi said:

It also was a net negative in other areas too, including the loss of cultural identity and traditions by many native children.  As compared to those who didn't enter the program, those who did were statistically more likely to not identify as Native American. 

I wish people would not  automatically assume "native Traditions" and "native culture" is somehow something that is good and not identifying as "Native American" is bad. 

 "Native Culture" isn't always a good thing.  I personally know many "Native" Americans (Including my wife) who do not want many of the cultural traditions of her "culture" passed down to our children. I remember talking to one of my friends from school who was telling me how much he struggled to get off the reservation and how much better his life was once he was able to leave. 

"native" does not always equal good.  Getting off the reservation is not always a bad thing.  

Also, many who leave or want their children to leave do so out of their own free will and not because others forced it on them. 

 

 

 

[pogi]

9 minutes ago, Danzo said:

I wish people would not  automatically assume "native Traditions" and "native culture" is somehow something that is good and not identifying as "Native American" is bad. 

 "Native Culture" isn't always a good thing.  I personally know many "Native" Americans (Including my wife) who do not want many of the cultural traditions of her "culture" passed down to our children. I remember talking to one of my friends from school who was telling me how much he struggled to get off the reservation and how much better his life was once he was able to leave. 

"native" does not always equal good.  Getting off the reservation is not always a bad thing.  

Also, many who leave or want their children to leave do so out of their own free will and not because others forced it on them. 

Wait, not identifying as a Native American anymore is a good thing?  Abandoning their racial identity is good?   

In relation to culture, good and bad is rather subjective and Native Americans celebrate much rich culture as good.   

 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Doctor Steuss said:

Thinking about this a bit... From a believing standpoint (I can still channel that old rascally portion of my innards from time-to-time), I think that one way of looking at this would be similar to the way the Bible is viewed.  In other words, the BoM was written by multiple authors, during multiple time periods, for a wide range of differing rhetorical goals based on varying political, religious, and social reasons... and then it went through an "editor" of sorts t'boot. 

Univocality in all aspects of the text would almost be the last thing one should expect (or try to force).

Exactly.  Even with the editing by Mormon, he could be influenced by the original author sufficiently enough not to change into completely his own mode because he was trying to convey their experience.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

And then put back on.

But a perfected and highly upgraded version…mortality is like the Walmart clearance aisle while eternity makes Balenciaga or Gucci look like a bad knockoff.

Edited February 22, 2024 by Calm

[smac97]

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

So essentially we need a law degree and the ability to use the principles of legal analysis to understand the text. 

I think sometimes a facile and unlearned approach to the text, particularly when accompanied by sociocultural presuppositions (regarding things like race) can and ought to be augmented by real study and examination.

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Even though according to JS, the book is the most correct book there is and we can get closer to God by aiding its preecepts than we can by using any other book.  And for at least 150 years it seems prophets, seers and revelators interpreted the passages about skin and the curse of darkness incorrectly.  I guess they should have attended law school.

Sorry but your approach here seems rather ludicrous and tortured at best.

I think it's more reasonable than the presentist notions that impair your approach.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

4 hours ago, pogi said:

Success, as defined by the church, was not merely based on educational and economic success, but also on a "lifelong commitment to the faith".   It was a proselytizing tool. 

In that sense it was a debacle in the same way that baseball baptisms were a debacle.  "If you want to participate, let me introduce you to Elders ______".    Missionaries had quotas, and they would "baptize children to go on placement just to fill their quotas". 

It was a miserable debacle in that sense. 

It also was a net negative in other areas too, including the loss of cultural identity and traditions by many native children.  As compared to those who didn't enter the program, those who did were statistically more likely to not identify as Native American. 

Cut your hair, change your clothes, remove you from your home, your parents, your culture, your heritage, require baptism to participate you into a church and place you with a white family that knows nothing of your culture and traditions who are being guided by a prophet who is attempting to eradicate their "superstitions" - Ya, there is the effects of all that too that needs to be taken into account.   Some of it is addressed in the links I provided. 

FAIR has a good article on this.  An excerpt:

Quote

Kevin Barney, a Latter-day Saint apologist, wrote the following in response to a criticism of the ISPS given by critics Thomas W. Murphy and Simon Southerton. The criticism of Murphy and Southerton practically mirrors the concerns/criticisms of other critics today.^[2]

Murphy comes down extremely hard on the Church’s Indian Student Placement Program. He writes: “The Placement Program, deemed cultural genocide by critics, removed over 70,000 Native American children from their homes from 1954-96 and placed them with urban white Mormon families in systematic efforts to turn Indians ‘white and delightsome.'” The shrillness of this statement is irresponsible and reflects a lack of scholarly balance and detachment. The Placement Program grew out of informal arrangements between Utah beet farmers and children of Navajo migrant pickers in the 1940s. Eventually it became a formal program, whereby Native American children were housed with Mormon families during the school year so that they could attend school; they returned to live with their families during the summers. The goals of the Program were both educative and acculturative. Now, perhaps trying to help Native American children gain the tools to succeed in the dominant anglo culture was not an appropriate or worthy goal. Certainly there is plenty of room for responsible criticism of the aims, administration and effects of the Program. But to evoke images of the Holocaust or ethnic cleansing in Bosnia with the incredibly hyperbolic “cultural genocide” is in my judgment an irresponsible way to go about it. To the contrary, many Native Americans have been upset that the Church has terminated or greatly scaled back both the Placement Program and other programs intended to serve Native American interests. So the Church is damned if it tries to help, and damned if it does not. To say that the children were “removed” in the passive voice ominously suggests to the uninformed reader that this was somehow done against their parents’ wishes. This is simply not true. For the reader interested in a more balanced anthropological consideration of the Placement Program, I recommend the studies indicated in the accompanying note.^[3]

Barney recommends the following resources in order to get a balanced treatment of the ISPS:

• Bruce A. Chadwick, Stan L. Albrecht and Howard M. Bahr, “Evaluation of an Indian Student Placement Program,” Social Casework 67, no. 9 (1986): 515–24.
• Bruce A. Chadwick and Stan L. Albrecht, “Mormons and Indians: Beliefs, Policies, Programs and Practices,” in Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives, ed. Tim B. Heaton and Lawrence A. Young (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 287–309.
• Tona J. Hangen, “A Place to Call Home: Studying the Indian Placement Program,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 30, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 53–69.
• James B. Allen, “The Rise and Decline of the LDS Indian Student Placement Program, 1947-1996,” Mormons, Scripture, and the Ancient World: Studies in Honor of John L. Sorenson, ed. Davis Bitton (Provo: FARMS, 1998), 85–119.

"The shrillness of this statement is irresponsible and reflects a lack of scholarly balance and detachment."

Thanks,

-Smac

[Thinking]

7 hours ago, webbles said:

...which included consecrating their wives to each other (more of a wife sharing or wife swapping than normal Mormon polygamy).

I feel the church leaders swing back and forth on this.

Emphasis mine. Freudian slip methinks.

[bluebell]

8 minutes ago, Thinking said:

Emphasis mine. Freudian slip methinks.

How so?

[smac97]

46 minutes ago, pogi said:

Quote

I wish people would not  automatically assume "native Traditions" and "native culture" is somehow something that is good and not identifying as "Native American" is bad. 

 "Native Culture" isn't always a good thing.  I personally know many "Native" Americans (Including my wife) who do not want many of the cultural traditions of her "culture" passed down to our children. I remember talking to one of my friends from school who was telling me how much he struggled to get off the reservation and how much better his life was once he was able to leave. 

"native" does not always equal good.  Getting off the reservation is not always a bad thing.  

Also, many who leave or want their children to leave do so out of their own free will and not because others forced it on them. 

Wait, not identifying as a Native American anymore is a good thing? 

Last year Idris Elba made the news when he stopped describing himself as a "black actor":

Quote

“Luther” star Idris Elba says he no longer refers to himself as a “Black actor” because the label put him in a “box” and an “obsession” with race can hinder aspirations and growth.

Speaking to Esquire UK, in an interview published Wednesday, the Golden Globe winner said that while he is a prominent member of the Black community, such separatism in Hollywood can hold entertainers back.

“If we spent half the time not talking about the differences but the similarities between us, the entire planet would have a shift in the way we deal with each other,” Elba told the publication.

“As humans, we are obsessed with race. And that obsession can really hinder people’s aspirations, hinder people’s growth.”

How much each person takes on an "identity" is a person-by-person thing.  

46 minutes ago, pogi said:

Abandoning their racial identity is good?   

I can't say that I've ever had much in the way of a "racial identity."  That said, I am glad that skin color is not the basis for my sense of community, both as to my extended family, my neighborhood and local community, the global Church, and the United States.

46 minutes ago, pogi said:

In relation to culture, good and bad is rather subjective and Native Americans celebrate much rich culture as good.   

I think Danzo had this in mind: "I wish people would not  automatically assume 'native Traditions' and 'native culture' is somehow something that is good and not identifying as 'Native American' is bad.  'Native Culture' isn't always a good thing."  The same can be said for pretty much every culture.  We ought to be at liberty to take the good parts and set aside the bad.

Thanks,

-Smac

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, pogi said:

Wait, not identifying as a Native American anymore is a good thing?  Abandoning their racial identity is good?   

In relation to culture, good and bad is rather subjective and Native Americans celebrate much rich culture as good.   

 

It sounds like Danzo is repeating what he has personally heard from some Native Americans, who have the right to feel any way they want about their culture. 

I grew up near a couple of reservations (and worked on one a few days each month in my early 20s for a couple of years) and the sentiments that he is repeating are the same that I heard as well.  Reservations are really really hard places to live.  The poverty levels are often more than double that for non-reservation, even in the same geographical area.  And crime rates are really high too (along with addiction rates and all the squalor and abuse that comes with that problem).  In fact, native american women living on reservations have the highest rates of sexual assaults in the entire nation.

There is so much about native american culture that is amazing and beautiful and incredibly meaningful.  But culture isn't just the good things.  Somethings are subjective but this kind of "good" and "bad" really isn't. 

Some of the culture needs to be abandoned (which thankfully can be done without abandoning the racial identity altogether).

[CV75]

After all the quality scholarship that has been conducted over the decades to show that both literal and figurative meanings are expressed in and by the text, the stronger reactions seem driven by an oddly inordinate attachment to a bias for one or the other, or a lack of exposure to one or the other, or a broader bias against the work beyond the text and issue being discussed. Seems strange to me, as the bias even affects picking which apologist or apologetic point upon which to focus.

[pogi]

23 minutes ago, bluebell said:

It sounds like Danzo is repeating what he has personally heard from some Native Americans, who have the right to feel any way they want about their culture. 

I grew up near a couple of reservations (and worked on one a few days each month in my early 20s for a couple of years) and the sentiments that he is repeating are the same that I heard as well.  Reservations are really really hard places to live.  The poverty levels are often more than double that for non-reservation, even in the same geographical area.  And crime rates are really high too (along with addiction rates and all the squalor and abuse that comes with that problem).  In fact, native american women living on reservations have the highest rates of sexual assaults in the entire nation.

There is so much about native american culture that is amazing and beautiful and incredibly meaningful.  But culture isn't just the good things.  Somethings are subjective but this kind of "good" and "bad" really isn't. 

Some of the culture needs to be abandoned (which thankfully can be done without abandoning the racial identity altogether).

I never implied that I think all culture is good.  And yes, all culture (just like morals) are relative/subjective.  If I wasn’t clear, I am speaking more of traditional culture and not a lot of the problems, including alcoholism, that came with the European invasion of these peoples.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_Native_Americans

As far as racial identity goes, that was also lost (not just their culture) by many Native Americans who were placed in these programs (of course they had to be baptized first and abandon their “superstitions” in order to enter the program).  
 

I haven’t heard anybody address this yet.  How is this any better than baseball baptisms?  The success/retention rate was about on par to baseball baptisms.  I see a major parallel.   It was not ok.  

 

Edited February 22, 2024 by pogi