Posted by:
wittyname
(
)
Date: October 08, 2012 04:18PM
Yeah, just playing devil's advocate. Actually, no so much devil's advocate as agreeing with you completely, but my take on what they would say if they were ever questioned about god's flip-flopping on age.
They don't provide any reasoning behind their made up revelations, and if questioned about the lack of insight, it's sort of a "there's not reason why, there's but do or die" situation. God didn't tell Abraham beforehand WHY he wanted him to sacrifice his son. So while Abraham was prepping his son for sacrifice, he didn't know why or question god's logic behind the request, he just did it. BUT, at the last minute god said "ok, stop, you've proven your loyalty, here's a ram to offer up instead." So the concept of god ordering prophets to do things and only revealing his plan afterwards or while it unfolds isn't a foreign concept to believers. In LDS terms, "when the prophet speaks, the thinking has been done" so I guess when god speaks to the prophet, the thinking has already been done, it's just an order for the prophet to execute.
The lack of explanation for the changes revealed to the prophet provides a bit of mystery, an implied sign of some unknown event that will occur in the near future (like the end of the world, because we're always in the VERY last days, right? and stirring up fear of the looming unknown results in submission and blind faith), and everything will be revealed in due course... all on god's time. Just the standard "it will all make sense eventually...." and eventually people will forget that that they are still waiting for something to make sense, to connect the changes and make it all reasonable as some sort of master plan. The church has no answers by design. If god has a history of seemingly random directions, it would seem suspicious if he started revealing the method behind the madness, that seems like it would be a clear signal to anyone with critical thinking skills but somehow still remains TBM. that the prophet is speaking as a man, not as a prophet.
Bottom line: it's all BS, they hide behind religious mystery and mythology to remain unaccountable for backtracking on decisions, making changes, etc. The sheep follow, or they open their eyes and end up posting these questions here :-D