I think he knew it was a fraud, but had no way to back out of it.

He’d have been murdered.

Testimonies and egos have a way of enlarging each other.

He 100% knew it was a fraud and said as much on national television.

"the people sustain me as such" is doublespeak for I am no prophet and I know it.

Yes. Hinckley was well practiced in the art of speaking without really saying anything at all. His answer was classic. You can take it any way you want. Fill in your own blanks.

Who with a direct line to God would answer like that? He was no Abinidi, that's for sure.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He was no Abinidi, that's for sure.

He would not have burned on a stake for his beliefs.

Oddly . . . Abinidi was no Abinidi either if you know what I mean.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
He was no Abinidi, that's for sure.


You can say that again. I mean, did you see the painting? Abinidi was RIPPED for being 80 million years old. Hinckley couldn't compare, I bet.

The First Presidency are the first to know.

Everyone else is on a greed to know basis.

I think it began to take hold when his wife died, he saw the light at the end of the tunnel...

The trite at the end of the funnel.

https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/sales-funnel/

The odds would seem to be at least even that he knew it was a fraud. As to whether or not he ever verbalized it to anyone, we have no evidence of it.

"I knew a so-called intellectual who said the Church was trapped by its history. My response was that without that history we have nothing. The truth of that unique, singular, and remarkable event is the pivotal substance of our faith."

"When it comes to divine authority, this is the sum and substance of the whole matter."

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2002/10/the-marvelous-foundation-of-our-faith?lang=eng

“Each of us has to face the matter — either the Church is true, or it is a fraud. There is no middle ground. It is the church and kingdom of God, or it is nothing.”
—President Gordon B. Hinckley
http://indiemormon.com/quotes/all-or-nothing/

To sum up, for Hinckley, his little flecks of history are all he has and they spell AUTHORITY which is the substance of his religious philosophy and without the history is there is no authority and the church is a huge fraud.

Spells it out very clear and with lots of clarity. For those who worship authority history will bolster their acquisition of it and they will uphold a fraud because for them there is no middle ground. Regardless of what they think of the fraud its authority and history are to be worshipped regardless of the fraudulency of this position.

Exactly, Elder Berry. My late grandfather was a GA, and he told us many times that Christ had NEVER talked to or shown himself to any of the apostles, not even the church president, prophet, seer, and revelator, himself. I remember Grandpa agonizing over tough decisions, and I used to think, "Why doesn't God at least help them decide?" The answer was, that God and Christ (if they exist) have nothing to do with Mormonism. It's a fraud.

forestpal Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I remember Grandpa
> agonizing over tough decisions, and I used to
> think, "Why doesn't God at least help them
> decide?"

Many religious people I believe only on a subconscious level understand that to be a believer means to suffer. Take for example my belief in X which isn't all inclusive and has many holes in it but it is my belief. I'm going to suffer for it and I can take this fact one of only two ways - exalt in it or be consumed by doubts with it. The Mormon leadership exalts in their beliefs. They realize they will suffer for them and regardless of whether there is an afterlife or not they prefer to suffer than the third option - dwindle in unbelief.

I actually believe the less sociopathic of the Mormon leadership welcomes the hard decisions and like their German apostle try to doubt their own doubts if they can't exalt in their elaborate exaltation in leading a fraud.

They all know it is a fraud. There is just too much money involved to openly admit it.

"greed to know basis"..................love it!

Do you sell your tokens for money?

No! The First Presidency only sells stocks and bonds bought with tithing tokens for money.

perhaps this topic could be further defined. the fraud, And what is "it"?

From what I recall Hinkley told Larry King flat out that he didn't believe in becoming a god, the temple thing was questionable. And he didn't believe in polygamy. He also condemned racism in the strongest (meaningless) words possible, without actually condemning anything. But he was absolutely certain that a 14 year old boy saw God and Jesus.

He believed some things, just not all of it.

We don't really know what he believed. We only know what he said. His words weren't necessarily truthful.

I don't think Hinkley cared if it was true or not. The church "authorities" rationalize that even if it's a fraud, the church teaches good values and is a good way to live and raise a family. They will perpetuate the fraud no matter what, and bearing a false testimony for what they consider to be the greater good is how they assuage their guilt for lying.

I think this likely.

I believe Hinckley absolutely knew Mormonism is historically and doctrinally fraudulent. He was the man who wrote What of the Mormons/Truth Restored in 1947, thereby canonizing the faith-promoting version of church history. There is simply no way that he was unaware of the multiple versions of the First Vision, the profound problems with the BoM, the truth about the BoA. Also, he spent much of the 1980s buying up documents that shed embarrassing light on the church and knew full well that he and the rest of the Q15 received no inspiration about Hoffman and the Salamander Letter. So Hinckley knew.

But these men had spent their lives in the church, having sacrificed their families and their integrity and much else. What are these egotistical characters to do? Admit that they are wrong? No, the psychologically natural path is to redefine Mormonism as an vehicle for good sustained by a mythology that must be preserved for the benefit of the benighted masses. That way the Q15 were right even if they were wrong.

Hinckley didn't care that the official history was false. He was confident that he personally was true, and to him that was all that mattered.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2020 11:38PM by Lot's Wife.

I agree with Heartbroken.

Has anyone read "The Word" by Irving Wallace? Someone discovers some ancient missing pieces of The Bible, and the discovery causes a resurgence of Christianity throughout the world. Half way through the book, discrepancies are discovered, one by one, and, eventually the Christian leaders realize that the writings are a hoax. What are the leaders to do? They look at all the good the new Christians are doing, in the way of charity work, and donations, promoting peace and love, etc., so they destroy the damning evidence, and proceed with their new church, proclaiming it all to be The Truth.

I was blown away when I read this novel, as it is the story of the Book of Mormon, from an apostate's POV, anyway. Except, Mormonism does NOT bring about wonderful charitable donations and labor to help the needy. The BOM is nothing but a tool to get money from people. But the Mormon leaders deny all of this to the public, and the members, deny to each other, deny to themself.

LOL--The families of the GA's are certainly benefitting from the fraud! That's got to be a huge motivation for the GA's to keep the Truth under wraps, and to continue on with the lies. $$$

? Same for those who followed him?

Monson, Russ (any others, I've been out-of-touch!!)

I have mixed feelings on this. I think it is likely the church leaders are well aware of all of the issues with the church regarding its truth claims. But I also think they believe they are called of God and truly doing his work.

The reason I think the latter is that when you are placed in an essentially closed environment, cut off from basic reality, your way of thinking and world view becomes greatly distorted. It happens quite quickly too. We hear this all the time when it comes to celebrities, that they are so out of touch with reality that they have no clue what real life is like. The same hold true with the Q15. These men are completely surrounded by people who sustain them and worship them as God's chosen representatives on earth. Nelson and Oaks have been in the Q15 for more than 35 years. That is 35 years of almost exclusively being surrounded by and associating with people who worship you as a "prophet, seer, and revelator". The entirety of their lives, for more than 35 years, has been the church and its mission and being worshiped as God's chosen men. It absolutely distorts their way of thinking, both about themselves and about the world around them.

Realistically speaking, we will never know for certain whether

or not he knows it's a fraud and we will probably not find out

if he told anyone else.

It doesn't matter to me one way or another because it has

no effect on my life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2020 01:31PM by saucie.

I think President Hinckley was proud of his Mormon heritage and didn't want to discrace it. His testimony seemed weak in his public interviews. You could tell the guy was trying to mainstream the church and still keep some of the historic traditions.

It's impossible to mainstream the church and still recognize Joseph Smith. The church has been playing this game since Hinckley. Russell M Nelson is putting the focus on Christ more but the mainstreaming won't work as long as Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and the Book of Mormon, D&C, and Pearl of Great Price are part of the doctrine still.

The church will have to completely bury it's past and just be a bible based Christian church to mainstream. In short. Hinckley was trying to do the impossible. The big wart on the church's nose is it's history.

Rubicon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hinckley was trying to do
> the impossible.

I'm shaking my head. I've heard this mantra so much. But it is like saying Scientology is trying to mainstream. That isn't the game or the big picture. They want their founders worshipped. Impossible unless one is Jesus.

Hinckley was a shift of desire. Ezra Taft Benson and previous leaders were proud to be known as a peculiar people. Starting with Hinkley was an attempt to make the church unpeculiar. As you stated. It’s impossible

I can not ever remember praise coming from church leaders. No, always put-downs and belittling our character. Jokes made at others' expense.

Hinckley takes a jab at missionaries' grooming and appearances.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuN_ZDJKkPo

messygoop Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I can not ever remember praise coming from church
> leaders. No, always put-downs and belittling our
> character. Jokes made at others' expense.
>
> Hinckley takes a jab at missionaries' grooming and
> appearances.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuN_ZDJKkPo

I was one of those missionaries in that room that day.

It's ironic that he said that though because the mission president made a big stink that we look out best that day. We all looked REALLY good that day. I remember my companion and I that morning ironing our shirts and polishing our shoes. None of the missionaries looked anything but great that day but his jokes fell flat because we all knew none of us had wrinkly shirts and we looked good.

I have to admit, those jokes did bother me because I knew none of it was actually true. I was also doubting at that point on my mission and was tired of being guilted and beat over the head by the mission president and GA's.

Doted with the Gift & Power of Discernment, Hinckley HAD to know that Hofmann was lying about the forgeries! It's likely that he was allowing Hofmann the opportunity to confess, repent and be absolved of his sins. what a good man!

As for the mormon church being True or being nothing, we exmos know that it isn't True, but that just leaves mormonism being a 100 billion dollar nothing, which is pretty somethingable!!! How'd you like to be a half, or even a tenth that nothing?

If it's a fraud, it doesn't seem realistic that someone who had been so involved for so many decades could not know.

Oh he could have told the world... but he would have been out

of a job and Im sure he didn't want to lose his lucrative pay

so Im sure he rationizlized an excuse as to why he didn't tell

the truth about it. After all these years, any one of the

general authorities could have spilled the beans but no one did

it. They have no honor.

i believe a lot of leaders dont know its a fraud but they like us believed in the lie was the truth, and sacrificed to much to ever think it was a fraud. but hinkley did say he didnt know about the doctrine of becomming gods which is a total contradiction and a lie. yes some leaders know its a fraud and some dont...