Posted by:
ThinkingOutLoud
(
)
Date: March 11, 2011 04:37AM
I'm no philosopher, but using the bible to prove the bible is ridiculous and so is using the BOM to prove the BOM.
It's like saying "I know that Joseph Smith spoke the truth because he told me he did."
And you are right that outside of Mormonism, no one gives this book any credence whatsoever.
No one these days buys even a toy for a 5-year-old without consulting those with varying experiences of it, or perusing umpteen different reviews at Amazon.
That is why when I come here and read the words "anti" literature, or "Mormon sources", I do IRL, LOL.
If I buy a car, I drive it first. More than once. I ask other people who own this model--and other people who once owned it, but got rid of it for some reason. I go online and check sources other than the car salesman's brochure.
I read books written by car experts who have ridden in it or driven it, and have something to say--positive or negative--about it. Not just those written by people from X Car Company, who only say good things about their own X Car--and who also warn me not to go look at what Y Company says about it.
I think carefully about what I am willing to pay for it, what I am willing to accept as its faults, and the reasons I see positives in it.
I DO NOT buy a car because I have always bought that particular model of car. Or because this is the car my parents have told me is best, that they have always driven---having never driven any other kind of car.
I do not buy the car because my good friends have one, and say it's the best, though I can clearly see it's always in the shop, and then they say just ignore that please, it's still the best! Really!
Because people will love me more if I do, or because they will not like me at all if I don't.
Because it looks pretty good as I pass it on the street, or I'll get a prize if I do.
I know being Mormon is not like buying a car, but choosing to stay one when you question it to high heaven, actually kind of is.
Choosing to do it, like buying a lemon you knew was a lemon when you took it home, means you only have yourself to blame. But if you're willing to live with that, think you can make lemonade out of it, and also be happy with lemonade while the rest of the world drinks Sangria, then go right ahead.
And to continue the fruit thing:
Arguing about it probably won't make you choose a different lemon. Ignoring having to choose a lemon in the first place won't make any lemon you eventually choose taste any sweeter, or more bitter, to you.
Choose a lemon, or refuse to ever touch one again in your life. Choose a smaller one than you thought at first you would like, or a bigger one than anyone else has ever seen. Bite it, or slice it, or throw it on the ground or my preference, throw it in some Sangria.
But before you do anything regarding the lemons in your life, make sure what you are actually talking about it is, in fact, a lemon. Not a lemon masquerading as a mango, or a rare, poisonous fruit which just so happens to look like a lemon.
Then do, or do not. There is no try. ~ Yoda