LDS

[Janadele]

What's a negro?...

Of Negro descent is also of African descent, though not all persons of African descent are of Negro descent. The descendants of a son of Noah named Ham and his wife Egyptus, are of Negro descent. Skin colour does not define of Negro descent.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Of Negro descent is also of African descent, though not all persons of African descent are of Negro descent. The descendants of a son of Noah named Ham and his wife Egyptus, are of Negro descent. Skin colour does not define of Negro descent.

...with all due respect, what does?

 

[Sideroxylon]

...with all due respect, what does?

This will be like asking a creationist for a definition of their baramin (Biblical kinds). Do not expect anything even approaching an operational definition.

 

[Pup]

...with all due respect, what does?

I suspect that my post earlier is the answer, though I have no idea why one can't just explain that if it isn't obvious, the person in charge should pray about it and God will give the answer.

If that's not the answer, I too would like to know what is. And if that is the answer, why not just say that?

 

[tsig]

...with all due respect, what does?

You'll know it when there's a burning in your bosom.

 

[RandFan]

Questions that won't likely be answered.

Of Negro descent is also of African descent, though not all persons of African descent are of Negro descent. The descendants of a son of Noah named Ham and his wife Egyptus, are of Negro descent. Skin colour does not define of Negro descent.

Would you please explain what is "negro descent"? Was Ham a descendant of Cain? Did Cain have black skin? Was the mark of Cain black skin?

 

[Sideroxylon]

I suspect that my post earlier is the answer, though I have no idea why one can't just explain that if it isn't obvious, the person in charge should pray about it and God will give the answer.

If that's not the answer, I too would like to know what is. And if that is the answer, why not just say that?

But the reason for praying would be suspicion based on the colour of someone's skin?

 

[Slowvehicle]

You'll know it when there's a burning in your bosom.

Let's leave my ample bosom out of this...

 

[Craig4]

It's painfully obvious that for you Christianity doesn't have anything to do with anything. Be that as it may, my challenge was to identify a CHRISTIAN church whose members pay as much in tithing as do Latter-day Saints. You responded by citing some figures Scientologists pay to their "church." Do you actually believe that the Church of Scientology is a Christian religion? Whoa!

"Special pleading"? Hilarious.

It's all pretty much the same, Buddhism, LDS, Catholicism, Islam, Scientology. Just distinctions without a difference.

 

[Nay_Sayer]

Of Negro descent is also of African descent, though not all persons of African descent are of Negro descent. The descendants of a son of Noah named Ham and his wife Egyptus, are of Negro descent. Skin colour does not define of Negro descent.

I'm actually uncomfortable for you, The hole you've dug yourself into with this negro nonsense is rapidly becoming a mine shaft.

 

[Akhenaten]

What's a negro?...

Of Negro descent is also of African descent, though not all persons of African descent are of Negro descent.

That explains precisely nothing.

It most certainly doesn't answer my question.

The descendants of a son of Noah named Ham and his wife Egyptus, are of Negro descent.

My question was based on an understanding that these negroes of which you speak exist in the real world.

I'm not interested in the characters in your big book of fairytales

Skin colour does not define of Negro descent.

That's why I asked you the question at the top of this post. You were supposed to tell me what does.

Or to put it another way, are you claiming the existence of white negroes?

 

[Pup]

Or to put it another way, are you claiming the existence of white negroes?

I totally get what Janadele's saying. Admittedly, I've never heard it from a living person before, but it's straight out of Brigham Young's day; one reads about it often back then.

Here's a photograph of some "white negroes" who were rescued from slavery in Louisiana during the Civil War:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsca.11146/

The caption reads: "These children were turned out of the St. Lawrence Hotel, Chestnut St., Philadelphia, on account of color," although they had been freed during the Civil War and brought north.

Here's a modern description of the incident that sparked the caption printed on the photo:
http://books.google.com/books?id=bYE0DuIxkHIC&pg=PA138&output=html

On the previous page (p. 137) the author discusses the topic in general:

The desire to see certain people's "true" racial identity surfaces throughout Northerners' accounts of their visits to the South during the Civl War. What confounded them was that one could not always observe traces of "African blood" in a person...

a correspondent for the New York Times encountered a "colored soldier" in the Louisiana Native Guards whom he took for a white man, only to be corrected by the commanding officer. "And do you really think him white?" the colonel asked. "Well you may, Sir: but that man is a 'negro'--one who carries the so-called curse of African blood in his veins."

And yet the writer concluded after studying the "fine-looking young man, not unlike General McClellan in mould of features," that he "would have defied the most consummate expert in Niggerology, by the aid of the most powerful microscope, to discover the one drop of African blood in the man's veins."

 

[Pup]

But the reason for praying would be suspicion based on the colour of someone's skin?

Not necessarily; it might also be social reasons, i.e. the way the person self-identified or fit into society. See my post above about the white-looking children who were kicked out of the hotel for being "negroes."

Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1850s asked an overseer how southerners could distinguish a "white negro" who ran away:

http://books.google.com/books?id=igNFAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA210&output=html

One of [the overseers] pointed out a [slave] girl—" That one is pure white; you see her hair?" (It was straight and sandy.) "She is the only one we have got."

It was not uncommon, he said, to see slaves so white that they could not be easily distinguished from pure-blooded whites. He had never been on a plantation before, that had not more than one on it.

"Now," said I, "if that girl should dress herself well, and run away, would she be suspected of being a slave?" (I could see nothing myself by which to distinguish her, as she passed, from an ordinary poor white girl.)

"Oh, yes; you might not know her if she got to the North, but any of us would know her."

"How?"

"By her language and manners."

"But if she had been brought up as house-servant?"

"Perhaps not in that case."

The other thought there would be no difficulty; you could always see a slave girl quail when you looked in her eyes.

Edited to add:

I'm actually uncomfortable for you, The hole you've dug yourself into with this negro nonsense is rapidly becoming a mine shaft.

^This.

 

[skyrider44]

Exactly! Great question. If we can't trust Brigham Young to hear god properly why should we assume current prophets can hear god properly? Why should we accept anything that any prophet says if it cannot be trusted? Does god mumble? Skyrider?

Your transparently false premise is that humans--even prophets--are capable of achieving absolute perfection in mortality. I think you know better than that. There are degrees of perfection. Whom will you follow? A person who has made minimal progress toward becoming perfect, or one who--like Brigham Young--made exemplary progress toward becoming perfect, warts and all?

All the hand-wringing discussion that occurs on this thread comes down to one overarching fact: You are a closed-case atheist by your own admission. Consequently, for you, God doesn't exist--and never will. What that means is that there is nothing a faith-based person can post that will be acceptable to you. Thus, exchanges with you are merely exercises in debate, which, I confess, does have value as entertainment.

 

[Pup]

Your transparently false premise is that humans--even prophets--are capable of achieving absolute perfection in mortality. I think you know better than that. There are degrees of perfection. Whom will you follow? A person who has made minimal progress toward becoming perfect, or one who--like Brigham Young--made exemplary progress toward becoming perfect, warts and all?

In general, it's the prophets themselves who claim the absolutes, such as Wilford Woodruff's claim that God would not let him lead the church astray.

If one wants the prophets to be considered merely as other humans with no input from God, we can do that, but it seems that church members are the ones asking that something more be attributed to the prophets.

If we consider Brigham Young as just another person, then given all the people available to follow in his generation, I would not necessarily label him as one who "made exemplary progress toward becoming perfect."

Personally, I'm not big on being a follower of people rather than principles, but I don't see him as the obvious stand-out among the many people with flaws who tried to do their best: Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Frederick Douglass, Clara Barton...

 

[Craig4]

Your transparently false premise is that humans--even prophets--are capable of achieving absolute perfection in mortality. I think you know better than that. There are degrees of perfection. Whom will you follow? A person who has made minimal progress toward becoming perfect, or one who--like Brigham Young--made exemplary progress toward becoming perfect, warts and all?

All the hand-wringing discussion that occurs on this thread comes down to one overarching fact: You are a closed-case atheist by your own admission. Consequently, for you, God doesn't exist--and never will. What that means is that there is nothing a faith-based person can post that will be acceptable to you. Thus, exchanges with you are merely exercises in debate, which, I confess, does have value as entertainment.

I wonder what the girls Young sexually assaulted thought of Young's "perfection". If Young was close to perfection I'd just assume stay flawed and yet still superior to him on every scale that counts. If he came back to life today and attempted to lick my boot I would stop him for fear that being associated with him would lower me.

 

[skyrider44]

I'm not following your line of argument. It seems to be taking several positions at once, hinting both that Woodruff's proclamation was true because of a couple short terms by prophets, and that it was false because prophets are indeed fallible and can lead the church astray.

Let me be clear: I have never said nor even suggested that God will allow His prophets to lead the Church astray.

It's apparently your position that persons of color were ready to receive the priesthood in BY's day. How do you know that? It's possible that BY's statements--repugnant as they are to us today--had a kernel of truth to them. It's also possible that the Lord told BY "Not yet." And it's a certainty that you don't know what the Lord told BY, nor do I.

: Either refusing the priesthood based on race was correct for over a hundred years, or God did let prophets lead the church astray for several generations.

Do you know, for a fact, that refusing the priesthood on race for 100+ years led the Church astray? If that were actually the case, why didn't the Church fail instead of thriving? You have constructed a false dichotomy.

: The D&C says, "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray... If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place..." That's crystal clear that the current prophet would be removed, not a future one a century later.

You assume that the priesthood ban implemented by BY led the Church astray. What evidence can you marshal to prove that? Moreover, you are not privy to what the Lord may have told BY, are you?

: The fact that some prophets had a short time in office seems pointless cherry-picking, when Brigham Young had a long time in office.

Perhaps so, although it was President Lee who stopped the momentum--created by Elder Hugh B. Brown--toward lifting the ban.

: There will naturally be a random variation in lifespans and a human tendency to find patterns in randomness. The fact remains that church presidents successfully kept blacks from having the priesthood, despite Woodruff saying God would not let the president lead the church astray. If one accepts Woodruff's statement as true, the obvious conclusion as far as I can see is that the church was not "astray" at that time and that God did feel blacks should be banned from the priesthood until 1978.

I think that's a logical conclusion. The operative word is "astray."

: It's politically incorrect, but it's a more logical consequence of accepting the D&C as true, than claiming that the church was being led astray all those years (which requires believing that Woodruff was leading the church astray when he claimed the church could not be led astray).

The legitimacy of your argument depends on what is meant by "leading the church astray."

: Errors in judgment by scientists are accepted because scientists don't make claims that they're either infallible or will be removed from power, like Woodruff did.

I am unaware that Woodruff claimed he was infallible.

: The idea that morals are self-correcting doesn't really make sense, because morals differ from a shared reality. A scientist in another culture can replicate an experiment and if the controls are the same, the result will be the same. But how does one design experiments to falsify "lying is morally wrong?" or "gay sex is a sin"? The most one can do is make other claims: "In this culture, most people think..." or "Under these conditions, it causes this specific benefit and this specific harm..." But without an objective definition of morality or sin, there's no way to "self-correct" to get closer to what actually is moral or sinful. That's why preachers make proclamations which require faith.

Many morals are self-correcting in the sense that if they are violated, negative outcomes inevitably follow. That's why there is universal agreement, with few exceptions, that certain acts are morally wrong.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Of Negro descent is also of African descent, though not all persons of African descent are of Negro descent. The descendants of a son of Noah named Ham and his wife Egyptus, are of Negro descent. Skin colour does not define of Negro descent.

And do you think that these descendants of Ham were cursed by god with a "skin of blackness"?

 

[Empress]

Let me be clear: I have never said nor even suggested that God will allow His prophets to lead the Church astray.

Unless I'm mistaken, you said before that Brigham Young "goofed" with the Priesthood ban. You now seem to be implying that perhaps he did not since your god would not allow his church to be led astray. Sometimes I'm a little dense, so would you please explain what your views are in reference to blacks or "Negros" holding the Priesthood? Was it a goof by Young, or did god order it?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Guys it is so simple.

Everything my church is saying right at this moment is flawless, perfect, incontrovertible, and without question. Everything they were wrong about before they were wrong about, but that can't call into question how perfectly right they are right now. Any thing they are proven wrong about in the future will retcon it so that whatever they are saying at that time will be flawless, perfect, incontrovertible and without question and that doesn't cause any mental problem with the fact that I am claiming the same thing right now.

So basically the only thing my church can ever be wrong about is the last time it claimed it was right about everything prior to the current time it is claiming to be right about everything.

And this all makes perfect sense.