You nailed it here.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,892915,894731#msg-894731

Joseph Smith was constantly changing Mormonism. The question I have is why?

I think it was to keep his con going. My father-in-law thinks that God doesn't give "The Truth" out whole clothe and needed to "develop" it line upon line, precept upon precept.

So what do most Mormon apologists attribute to with regards to the early days and every changing early Mormonism?

The Kirtland Temple dedication sounds like lots of "Sacraments" with full wine glasses. Now it is all white suited gerontocracy sober assemblies.

I just read a chapter in Harrell's book about this, and I would suggest that as Joseph Smith had time to ponder, compare his ideas with others as he became more famous and met more people in important places and accomplishments, he generally added to more of his views. At one point early on he was quite vague and more symbolic thinking of the scriptures, then later he got much more literal. It waxed and waned.
The idea of receiving line upon line, step by step is an apologetic view and has some merit actually. I mean think about it, we do the same thing in math. Well I used to argue like that, but wait a sec......now lets think this through a bit. Assuming there is a God, is there anything MORE important to HIM (tom Riskas really hammers this one home! It IS His work to bring to pass our immortality, yes?) than to get us the maximum TRUE information about the kind of being he is? I mean, I know, I know, Joseph Smith asserted it was the most important thing we could do is learn about the true nature of God, so, well......WHY didn't God just give it to Joseph? Why all the evolving, changing thinking on his part, and the early Mormon leaders? And today.....RIGHT NOW, there appears to be a more concerted effort to make God in Mormonism go back to the more Protestant theological thinking that was in Mormonism in the 1830's! What the heck is going on here? Do we KNOW about God or not?

CAN God give us to understand more than we do? Every single prophet I have ever read agrees God can do miracles.....but he apparently can't with this one. Why not? Well just because.

Lookit man, that doesn't cut the frickin mustard with me anymore man. If there is nothing too hard for God to do, and this is supposed to be his GREATEST DESIRE FOR US, then for crying out loud, He could easily give us the actual truth of it. But he doesn't. WHY? Oh we are told we are not spiritual enough (GAG ME!!!!!!), or we are not worthy (BULLSH!!!!!!!!!!!), every excuse simply doesn't make sense to me anymore.

However.......what might be the real reason? Simply because men always try to outdo each other in their knowledge and understanding of this being called "God. And the more weird and wild ideas one can find (they are ALL pretty cock-eyed zany when you actually think them through) the more holy they are seen by people. Well this does not reflect good on we idiot humans. We are far too gullible. But that is what makes the holy men have authority!

I would propose, for now, that it is Joseph Smith gathering ideas in the environment and trying like crazy to outdo the other ideas so it makes his theology all the more powerful, better, etc. It's him expanding after decades of thinking, every aspect of God he can.

Thanks for participating! And, um, not to be snarky, but you are still Mormon?

wrong spot



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2013 09:48PM by almostthere.

I suspected my Father-in-law got this thinking from somewhere in Mormon Apologia.

I too gag on the "not ready." It proliferates Mormon life. There is usually a rumor going around Mormondumb to the effect that The Prophet has a God-given gag order or something blah, blah, blah.

Mormonism is not an individual's enlightenment religion like it was sold via Joseph Smith. Today it is a multi-national powerful agribusiness, financial and banking corporation run by an elitist cult of conservativeness instead of personality. In my opinion.

If God can work miracles, He can do a better job with getting His good word and works out and done.

Having to change "The Truth" via "revelations" basically making His Church fall more in line with "The World" makes no sense whatsoever to me.

The themes I see in Joseph Smith's revelations are

Give Joseph more money.

Give Joseph more power.

Give Joseph more sex.

The changes had the effect of keeping people interested, excited, and distracted. Also, once you sell on-going revelation, you have to give folks something. Unfortunately for the current prophets, seers, and revelators Joseph apparently used up all the fun, because they are relegated to giving revelations on momentous issues like the number of piercings allowed. (Jesus had five, by the way.)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2013 09:46PM by robertb.

Jesus had tattoos? :p

Yes I am still a Mormon, not all that active though. What I have personally discovered is something that as an apologist I was insisting on others doing. If you want to learn about Mormonism then READ the Mormon scholars! DUH!

Well, using that logic guess what happened? I discovered that apologists simply harped about the atheists, they whine, they just have old already refuted arguments, they have nothing to replace faith with, their religion is based on faith also, etc., etc. I simply took their word for it.

It dawned on me that I just HAD to be honest and read ALL sides so began my odyssey in atheist literature. To date, only about 14 books under my belt this year (since November). another 66 or so to go. If my math won't interfere with me I can polish em all off this year before 2014.

Well.........little known to me (how could it have possibly been otherwise?) the atheist arguments are seriously powerful. Now this is just me, so relax if they make you nervous. But....as a former apologist, I really felt like I could take em on and give em a whippin. Hey, as an apologist, with God on your side, you simply can't lose. If they refute your logic, sic the Holy Ghost on em, it works everytime.

At Sunstone, I run into Loyd Erickson of Greg Kofford Books. A GREAT guy! Well, I looked at Tom's book, opened it (ended up on the fateful page 93), and read. I was simply STUNNED. Wait a sec.......man I gotta get this, so I did. Then read it all the way through, and then read several parts several times through, and now am working through it again totally for the 2nd time.

I am a skeptical Mormon at best, an agnostic really. I have dobts. Look, sometimes ya gotta pull up yer chin, look yerself in the eye in the mirror and say "Damn it man! I really do have doubts here now." So, there is where I am.

And you weren't snarky......

"I discovered that apologists simply harped about the atheists, they whine, they just have old already refuted arguments, they have nothing to replace faith with, their religion is based on faith also, etc., etc."

Yeah, no kidding! I spent so much time looking through all that stuff, and it gave me nothing but headaches. I remember the phrase "those old chestnuts" coming up more than once in reference to critical arguments. Well, I still hadn't heard any good answers to "those old chestnuts"! They just wanted me to dismiss the arguments and assume they had been answered elsewhere. It was a night and day difference when I finally gave a quick look to some of the critics sites (not all, of course). It became very clear what they were doing.

By the way, I don't have a copy of DM, so what was on page 93 that made such a fast impression?

And, haha, I thought about being more snarky, but I resisted!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2013 09:51PM by almostthere.

backyardprofessor Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes I am still a Mormon...

And how does a person start _not_ being that?

I was born a Latter Day Saint and I suppose that I'll
die being one as well. I know no other identity -- no other
heritage -- no other family.

Perhaps if I had been a convert -- or just a third or
fourth generation offspring. But the ancestral tree reaches
back to the same day and stream as neighbors' Jedediah M.
Grant and Benjamin Winchester's baptisms... and back past
that to Mother Lucy's own grandmother.

How to walk away from a heritage in which I was reading
First Nephi before I ever read Treasure Island or Tarzan?

And, even if I could turn my back on all of that, and
condemn it as the worst thing that ever happened to me,
why should I? That would be a lie and a bad new start.

A cross I'll just have to bear, I suppose -- like my wife's
grand parents having to wear the six-pointed star in Vienna
and places even worse than that.

Shucks, I can't even pronounce shibboleth with the proper
ex-Saint accent.

UD

I was quite snarky.

glad to see you here.

No worries Unk, we is what we are, and we won't be anything else. But I'll be damned if I ain't a gonna think through it all anyway, and test, analyze, and continue to learn, even if it means understanding things differently than even good ole Jedediah M. Grant.....

backyardprofessor Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No worries Unk, we is what we are, and we won't be
> anything else. But I'll be damned if I ain't a
> gonna think through it all anyway, and test,
> analyze, and continue to learn, even if it means
> understanding things differently than even good
> ole Jedediah M. Grant.....

Well, Jeddy could get a mite hot under the collar at times.
One cold glance from Port Rockwell was enough to snap him
back into line tho. The Reformation must have been a wonder
to behold.

But, yes, a considerable amount more light and truth
might have been poured out, even back then. It's well worth
the trouble to go back over things and look at them with
fresh eyes. Brothers Rockwell and Hickman are no longer
lurking about, preaching blood atonement. It's safer now.

UD

Welcome, backyardprofessor! I watched a few of your later videos - when you were questioning and one thing I remember was your statement: follow the logic through to the end.

I kind of watched your videos in reverse sequence, so when I went back to an earlier video, you were talking about something, but hadn't gotten to the point where you could follow the logic out to the end yet. You had stopped just short of seeing through the mormon theology (where if you had followed the logic out to the end, you would have seen the problem in the mormon theology you were defending - I don't remember the issue or video).

It was fascinating to see you progress and be honest with yourself and others. Nothing like baring everything to the whole, wide, world, eh?

To answer the o/p, I think you're missing the classic apologist view: JS was still learning HOW to be a prophet (it's a variation of the "speaking as a man" / line upon line precept). He didn't know what questions or issues to think / ask about until they came up. God was perfectly willing to give the answers, but the right questions hadn't been asked.

But that begs the question: If it was important, why wouldn't god give him the goods, the right way, the first time? Instead of letting him muddle about and get things wrong? So Joe could learn how to be a prophet? The bible has some things to say about prophets who get things wrong - they should die (not saying the bible is foolproof and we should follow all its precepts, but that's what it says...)

There are no easy answers as an apologist; always rationalizations and "apologies". The easy answer (and it is pretty well backed up by facts, I think) is that JS lied for his own gain (and his family's gain).

dot Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The bible has some things to say
> about prophets who get things wrong - they should
> die (not saying the bible is foolproof and we
> should follow all its precepts, but that's what it
> says...)

Good point. It says 10 percent tithe and tacitly accepts polygamy and slavery.

SO apparently, God is "developing" a New Testament in the form of Another Testament and I know this by a personal Testimony.

Speaking T words, the above sounds tenuous to the third degree of the Celestial Kingdom not to mention the second anointing to get into it.

It is like Tom Cruise Scientology except it has an American Jesus. It is obvious to the Mormons I live with and around that The Book of Mormon stories and The Bible aren't the focus. It is the social networking that is.