A friend shared this talk with me. It is spreading through Utah with leadership suggesting that the ideas in this talk be discussed in ward councils and on 5th Sundays. I think more and more people are becoming aware of the problems and the rumblings are getting harder to ignore.

Here is a link.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uywdxih3rjqgwo2/HeberUT-SacMtgTalkOnTestimonyPreserving.pdf

I just discovered this was posted a month ago here is the link.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1166272,1166285

As I was composing this message I discovered the above discussion. I guess my point in posting again is that the message is spreading further and wider amongst the "believers". It makes me happy to see the dissemination of truth and light.

So, truth becomes belief, belief becomes teaching, teaching becomes a couplet we don't really teach or know much about and then it all just becomes "good enough."

No thanks!

Most of it is the same kind of reasoning as far as I can see. Claim there's compelling evidence in favor of your claims without citing any. Accuse your opponents of not playing fair without giving any example. Throw down a straw man: JS practiced polygamy without mentioning the troubling bit: he married other men's wives and underaged girls. Pretend your opponents expect "perfection" from leaders. Pretend there are books out there that answer everything so you can continue believing someone can refute this stuff even if I can't.

What does appear to be new, though, is the idea the church isn't true, and that's fine. In fact he says that needing the church to be true is a product of "simplistic thinking." Wow, that's pretty strong. He claims that "wisdom" requires only that the church be "satisfy." It's completely subjective. If this perspective gains traction, it'll kill the cult aspects of Mormonism. When you quit the church, your mom can't chastise you for turning your back on the Truth. It's enough to tell her that the Mormonism no longer satisfies you, and she should stop being so simplistic and get wise.

Seriously. Once they take away all the claims, most quickly decide it just isn't worth the trouble. It's far from good enough!

Should be interesting to discuss if things like the Celestial Kingdom are just opinions or "true enough" to pay your 10%, pray and obey ----- but make sure you pay (time) pay (talents) pay in money---- They really seem to like money!

I like this line from his opening paragraph: "one of the reasons is that they were unable to find satisfying answers to many thorny questions."

Actually, I had no trouble finding answers to the thorny questions once I allowed myself to read the non LDS-approved information that's out there. After doing so I came to the conclusion that Joseph Smith was a fraud and now, everything about the church makes perfect sence.

Me too!

There's plenty of LDS-approved material out there to prove that there was no "first vision", that the BoM is pure fiction, that Joe and Brigham were inconsistent lying @$$holes, etc...

That's a whole lot of baggage attached to "a 24 year old, uneducated young man could not write a book in 75 days
that is as complex as the Book of Mormon, containing such profound messages and powerful
doctrines. He could not have in a few years given the world a new view of mankind, with an
eternal existence, inherent innocence, perfect freedom and infinite potential---views that were
completely at odds with the prevailing theology of his day."

Sorry to burst the bubble, but Joe had been imagining and telling native american stories for years and his ideas about god were similarly developed over many years. He just finally decided to commit them to paper. There is nothing remarkable about that process.

Not to mention the fact that the BOM is not "completely at odds with the prevailing theories of the day."

That Indians were a lost tribe(s) of Israel was a common speculation in the day.

That God was a spirit, not flesh and bone, was also a common theory of the day. (SMith didn't invent God has a body until at least five years after writing the BOM.)

That polygamy is wrong - also commonly held view.

The really only unique thing about the BOM is the visit of a genocidal killer, Jesus, to the Americas.

Death knell.

Appreciate you posting this. I had missed it the first time around.

Found it very interesting to read the arguments and approaches suggested to take care of the "problem," and see just how they were choosing to spin and hide the facts.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2014 11:51PM by presleynfactsrock.

What a squishy, two-faced, useless belief system. Let 'em have it if they really need it, just no tax exemptions and deeuctions for choosing to join a club with no redeeming value or values, except to serve, house, clothe, and feed itself.

Mormons how do you hold the Mormon church accountable. What is the Mormon church if it isn't the scripture and the leadership, especially the prophets?

Why to this date does the Mormon church use the artwork of JS and OC working together hand on gold plates to translate the Book of Mormon. Is the atory so absurd that they can't tell the real version. Yes, yes it is. That is why missionaries, Seminary, and BYU students that have received A's in courses on Church History and the Book of Mormon still have no idea that JS didn't use the Urim and Thummim and the Gold Plates in the production of the Book of Mormon by his own admission. Double-talk that Brother Elder.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2014 12:18AM by gentlestrength.

Is it possible the depiction of Joseph studying the plates was really "misinterpreted" as plates and really it was View of the Hebrews and The Late War? ;-)

Hahahhaha!!! Yeah, that's the ticket. Those were the "plates."

This wishy washy drivel is not what one expects from the One True Church. If your prophet is God's mouthpiece, and you are the only true church on earth, then why all the excuses and apologetics and constant need to rephrase and rewrite EVERYTHINg?

If I'm ever given a chance to give talk I may quote that talk, I think it opens a door! Then I may include notions of leaders' keeping us ignorant; viz, the England case.

This is very damning

"We have been encouraged to teach only faith promoting information. That clearly has value and is effective at conveying the believing point of view. I fear we got by with that when information was harder to access. In this day of the internet, virtually all information is within everyone’s reach, instantly and free of charge. I believe it calls
for a new practice of introducing these potentially faith damaging issues gradually"

"I think it is far better that they hear such truths from me or some other respected leader or teacher and not from an antagonistic preacher or a disaffected former member. Again, it is easier to cope with these issues when taken in small doses, one at a time"

Milk before meat then introduce the meat very slowly like slowly boiling a frog. If someone finds all this information at once it is overwhelming and obvious that it is a fraud. By introducing it slowly it is like the frog being boiled slowly.

I agree. Very damning. They've backed themselves into a very bad corner.

"Because of the internet, we're not able to keep up the same lies we've been telling for 184 years. So we're going to start telling a little bit of truth spread out over time, and hope that we don't lose more members than we gain during the process."

Pablum.

Talk about your slippery slope--at some point I expect a GC talk where someone says "The church is a completely fraudulent load of crap, but that's good enough for me, so hand over your 10%."

That's a far cry from "Hey, Smith, I'm God, and I'm gonna tell you EXACTLY what's what about EVERYTHING."

I think they'll first try "The church may not be what you thought, but we're good enough and you can't raise your children without us. Give us 10% and we promise you'll be happy." Yeah right.

This link might have been posted before as well:

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/the-imperative-for-a-historical-book-of-mormon/

The author is arguing against the "slippery slope" of accommodation popular with TBMs who argue that Smith was an automatic spiritualist or those that argue that the BofM is merely inspired mythology, etc.

Read the comments from so-called progressive TBMs ripping into the author for his ultra-orthodox positions. (Ultra-orthodoxy meaning that for mormonism to make any sense the founding events, cosmological doctrine and the BofM and other scriptures have to be literally true!)

Watching TBMs argue with each other about this stuff would be truly funny if it weren't so pathetic.

Heavy, heavy shelves on display!

This article is the antithesis of what the church's Barristers were saying in court last Friday.

I think you have to give this guy credit for the depth of his understanding of the challenges facing the church. If all Mormons cared enough to understand the issues at this level it would make such a difference.

The fact that he chooses to believe is his perogative.

If this talk had been given by a member of the First Presidency or Quorum of the 12 the board implode under the moisture of everyone wetting their panties in excitement.

I really liked this quote:

"The world would be a better place if those who believed would not look at the skeptics as if they were morally inferior; and if the skeptics would not look at the believers as if they were intellectually deficient. In truth, the believer can be a scoundrel and the skeptic can be an ignoramus."

We've all known dodgy church members, and this board is full of many fine examples of the ignorance of some who have left the church behind.

Please, do tell. At what "level" does he understand the issues? What he understands is that if the members knew all the real factual problems undermining JS' restored gospel, many of them would quit. His concern is that the members don't quit. Why should he care what choice they make if he's simply exercising his own prerogative to choose to believe? What he's doing is outlining his proposed method of manipulating information in such a way as to keep people from leaving because of the truth. This is manipulating others, not simply exercising your own choice.

He's further manipulating by dramatically changing the church's position on truth, he just turned 180 degrees and pretended he didn't. The church, which has been calling itself "true" from the beginning, isn't true anymore; it's "good enough." Moreover, he added the classic Mormon M.O. of pretending it's always been that way. Now, wanting truth from the church is "simplistic." It's unwise, unsophisticated. He just pulled the rug out of all the sincere members and missionaries who've been testifying as the truth. They were, and are, misguided (not that the church will take any responsibility for misguiding them. It must of been due to some folklore they were silly enough to pick up).

During Romney's campaign, the public called this procedure, "flip-flopping," for want of a better term. They'd never been exposed to this wholesale change of position accompanied by the straight-faced pretense that the position hadn't changed. By the end of the campaign, even Romney supporters, who hadn't been conditioned in this particular form of lying and manipulation, were thoroughly fed up.

+1

Gotta give him credit for bringing up issues and suggesting people learn. If he stopped there and told people to decide for themselves it would have been fantasic. Instead he proceeds down the "anti-mormon" path and makes it out like Mommonthink etc.. have hidden intent of bring you down. He also suggests the false dichotomy of "you are either a believer or non believer and this is the most imporant decision you will ever make." What a pile of manipulative BS.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2014 03:55PM by perky.

Once again they characterize nonbelievers as people who make mountains out of molehills. All critics of the church have bad intentions and will use any means possible to convince believers the church is wrong. Church critics also take history and fact and mix it in with falsehoods in order to deceive.

Could it be that it's the opposite? That believers look at problems with the church and, like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, pretend that a mortal wound "tis but a scratch". Or that church leaders will use any means possible to convince believers that everything they've been told is right, despite contrary evidence. Or that church leaders and defenders will take history and fact (in all their damning truth) and twist it, excuse it, and mix in falsehoods in order to enable their followers to keep believing?

Why should we look for satisfying answers? We should look for truthful answers instead.

Did you know that all critics of the church are mean-spirited and antagonistic? Anyone who doesn't come to the "right" conclusions and find the church's answers "satisfying" is exactly this.

Once again they characterize nonbelievers as people who make mountains out of molehills. All critics of the church have bad intentions and will use any means possible to convince believers the church is wrong. Church critics also take history and fact and mix it in with falsehoods in order to deceive.

Could it be that it's the opposite? That believers look at problems with the church and, like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, pretend that a mortal wound "tis but a scratch". Or that church leaders will use any means possible to convince believers that everything they've been told is right, despite contrary evidence. Or that church leaders and defenders will take history and fact (in all their damning truth) and twist it, excuse it, and mix in falsehoods in order to enable their followers to keep believing?

Why should we look for satisfying answers? We should look for truthful answers instead.

Did you know that all critics of the church are mean-spirited and antagonistic? Anyone who doesn't come to the "right" conclusions and find the church's answers "satisfying" is exactly this.

Also, some church members seem to have this crazy idea that the Holy Ghost speaks to your heart, like a burning in your bosom. I don't know where people come up with this stuff. It's crazy. You have to use your heart AND your mind. And if your mind doesn't match your heart, then your mind is probably expecting too much and you should stop thinking about it too much and just be wise and find the church "true enough". Prophets make mistakes. Just because a prophet cannot tell us what God wants us to do does not make him not a prophet. Why can't you stop seeing the world in such black and white terms of true and false? Why do you insist on this being the "one true church"? Isn't true enough good enough for you?

This quote from the talk is so true:

"In the Mormon Church the official doctrine is that the Prophet is fallible. But no one seems to want to believe that."

Growing up as a mormon, even though the official doctrine is that prophets aren't perfect (Jesus was the only perfect person according to mormonism), you end up assuming the prophets are perfect, since as a kid you're made to sing songs like "Follow the Prophet", and generally there's gasps of horror in a lesson whenever anybody disagrees with something the prophet said.

The church obviously doesn't make a bigger point about prophets not being perfect, since it gives them more power if people obey without question. However, that's hurting them now because when people find out about the things Joseph Smith and Brigham Young did they are shocked. Whilst really if the church had emphasized all along that prophets weren't perfect, then people wouldn't be so shocked to find that Joseph committed adultery or something like that.

They can't have it both ways. Either God picked JS as his guy to restore his church because he was the best man in 2000 years for the job, or he was a horny con man. He can't be both.

Smith > Jesus

"...I will come out on the top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet." (History of the Church, Volume 6)

I believe that "the church is true, enough" will be the cult's new mantra side by side with "doubt your doubts".

Thank you everyone for your insightful thoughts. I will share your feedback with my friend.

Brother Zenger undermines so many teachings and beliefs in his talk that it makes me smile. And yet somehow, in his mind, he thinks he is making things better for those making discoveries of the truth. You have to love it.