LDS

[RandFan]

Testimony of the Three Witnesses

As a group, the Three Witnesses served only one other role in the church before they were excommunicated in 1837-38.

Makes one wonder why an omniscient god would pick these three? And how on earth do you get yourself excommunicated after seeing an angel?

 

[RandFan]

from the forum management forum:

I did not "claim that it's a blessing to kill a child "

We were talking about god failing to save children dying of leukemia. You said:

The sufferings and evils of the world have been brought about by the choices mankind have made.

When a young child dies of leukemia, what bad choices did it make?

It is not necessary for us to live a long life. Those who do not, are blessed in that their trial is short, with less mistakes to be accounted for... and in the case of a child under the age of eight, they have no sins to be judged on, and will inherit the highest degree that their pre existant life allows for.

 

[bruto]

I'm not. Smith's behavior is typical of church leader con-artists. When I was an active member I thought Smith was a decent man. Not a con-artist that made money using supernatural means to find gold buried in the ground. It's a fact that Smith did that. He just changed his scam to using supernatural means to find gold scriptures.

It was an effective scam. If you promise people to find them gold for a fee and you fail they often get upset. If you promise people eternal life that's a little bit more difficult to get upset that you didn't get your eternal life.

Oh, I'm not disputing that really, but I guess being more external to that faith and others than you once were, I find the whole thing so bogus from the get-go that the character of the individual takes a back seat. It would not be so different to me, at least, whether Smith had been a squeaky-clean mystic or a con man. We already see some unfortunate tendency for the defenders of bogus doctrine to hide behind accusations of biased history.

This is not to say I discount your view either. I think for those who are inclined to believe, evidence that Smith was lying and corrupt and conscious of his nonsense ought to be brought out, because those who depend at all on his credibility should know as much as there is to know.

But where doctrine is concerned, sly and crazy don't end up differing much.

 

[dafydd]

Dying young and in pain is being blessed? Now that is some twisted logic.

 

[RandFan]

Oh, I'm not disputing that really, but I guess being more external to that faith and others than you once were, I find the whole thing so bogus from the get-go that the character of the individual takes a back seat. It would not be so different to me, at least, whether Smith had been a squeaky-clean mystic or a con man. We already see some unfortunate tendency for the defenders of bogus doctrine to hide behind accusations of biased history.

This is not to say I discount your view either. I think for those who are inclined to believe, evidence that Smith was lying and corrupt and conscious of his nonsense ought to be brought out, because those who depend at all on his credibility should know as much as there is to know.

But where doctrine is concerned, sly and crazy don't end up differing much.

Fair enough.

 

[bruto]

Back to questions of doctrine, I still have an issue, as others obviously do, with the basic question of how children suffer and what one should do about it.

In most religions where prayer is practiced, it is considered a good thing to pray for your child's health, that he or she be delivered from death. If the object of the prayer occurs, God is often credited with it. Sometimes even with a miracle. In any event, when the object of a prayer occurs, I don't think there's any religion that says God has betrayed the person praying by granting the wish.

At the same time, in most religions, and certainly as Janadele has expressed her take on Mormonism, when a child dies young, even under extremely unpleasant circumstances, God makes it all right, takes the child into heaven and this is also seen as a positive good, a blessing. This blessing can obviously be granted only to children who die. If their parents prayed for their deliverance, clearly they did not get what they prayed for, and yet in most religions it's found, post facto, that God did not betray them by denying the wish.

So God gets the credit for bestowing blessing no matter what happens and no matter how unpredictable an outcome might be. That's obviously a stumbling block for those disinclined to believe in prayer. It would be informative for a person inclined to believe in prayer to come up with a good account of this problem, preferably not a rehash of the very unsatisfactory fudges that have occurred so far from so many sources.

More important, though, it seems to me, is the basic question of where this dichotomy leaves the person praying. If early death is a blessing, then a parent praying for a child's deliverance is being selfish. Selfishness is generally considered a sin itself, and certainly a poor motivation for prayer. There is a clear paradox here. If denial of a prayer is a blessing, how can the prayer be made without sin? If both denial and granting of a prayer are equal blessings, then the prayer is clearly superfluous, and should be omitted entirely.

So, what I'd like to hear from Janadele or another spokesman for the Mormon point of view is what their policy is on prayer, or more specifically, on petitionary prayer. What is permitted, what required, and how this paradox is addressed.

 

[sackett]

Sir Richard Burton, assessing J. Smith, was of the opinion that Smith came to believe in his own divine inspiration, that is, that Smith concluded that he was in some way God's instrument after all. Burton doubted that Smith would have stuck with the game until the end unless he really believed in some or all of the line he had made up.

Does that sound confused? Narcissistic? Paranoid? Yes; but it also sounds to me like a man who's riding a tiger and doesn't know how to get off. In Smith's situation, a retreat into fantasy might seem safer than trying to disengage.

Fawn Brodie (I can't recommend her book enough; it's literature, b'god) suggests that Smith was too deluded by visions of grandeur to escape. In the North America of his day, it might just have been possible to found a Mormon nation somewhere in the west; it might have been feasible to filibuster a kingdom out of that ungoverned immensity of territory.

 

[Janadele]

I repeat: I did not "claim that it's a blessing to kill a child."

Myriad,
It saddens me also the cruelty we find in our world. Our only consolation is that though at times it seems interminable, our time here is very short. It seems only yesterday when we look back upon our lives.

We chose to come to this earth to receive our mortal body, knowing the hardships which may befall us. Yet we confidently came, in order to progress through the eternities and receive an immortal resurrected body in which our Spiritual body will dwell.

Free agency to choose good or evil and therefore reap the consequences thereof is our trial. This must be allowed to be so for all, in order to enable judgement and rewards.

The sufferings and evils of the world have been brought about by the choices mankind have made.

It is not necessary for us to live a long life. Those who do not, are blessed in that their trial is short, with less mistakes to be accounted for... and in the case of a child under the age of eight, they have no sins to be judged on, and will inherit the highest degree that their pre existant life allows for.

There were no diseases in the Garden of Eden before sin was introduced to the world through Eve disobeying the instructions of our Heavenly Father.

 

[bruto]

Janadele, you did not explicitly say it's a blessing to kill a child. Clearly you would agree with everyone that a person killing a child is never blessed and never bestowing a blessing. So let us agree that the killing is not a blessing. But you certainly imply that when it's over, the child ends up blessed, and inherits the highest degree, etc. That still brings up the question of what, if anything, one ought to be seeking if one is praying for a child. The very idea of prayer implies that it is possible to petition God for a special action. If you can ask God for special action, you cannot also say that the such a God has no part in the way of the world. And it would seem obvious that you shouldn't ask for something that's wrong either. How about a simple idea of your rules for this.

 

[kerikiwi]

I repeat: I did not "claim that it's a blessing to kill a child."

How are we doing with the barley?

 

[slyjoe]

I'm doing fine with the barley. Thanks for asking.

Happy New Year

 

[Slowvehicle]

The topic of this thread... LDS... indicates the subject is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Not anti-Mormon lies, myths, fabrications, misinterpretations. I ask the anti-Mormon posters in this thread to start their own thread if they wish to post from anti-Mormon literature and propaganda.

...Domesticated barley in the new world, prior to its introduction by Europeans in the 13th and 14th centuries C.E.?
...Domesticated cattle husbandry in the new world prior to the introduction of domestic cattle by Europeans in the 13th and 14th Centuries C.E.?
...Domesticated horses in the new world prior to the introduction of domesticated horses by Europeans in the 13th and 14th Centuries C.E.?
...Odd claims about the semitic descent of mesoamerican peoples?

 

[jsfisher]

...Domesticated barley in the new world, prior to its introduction by Europeans in the 13th and 14th centuries C.E.?
...Domesticated cattle husbandry in the new world prior to the introduction of domestic cattle by Europeans in the 13th and 14th Centuries C.E.?
...Domesticated horses in the new world prior to the introduction of domesticated horses by Europeans in the 13th and 14th Centuries C.E.?
...Odd claims about the semitic descent of mesoamerican peoples?

So we have claims in the Book of Mormon at odds with basic historical fact. We should add the use of technology like the compass well before its introduction to the Americas, too, shouldn't we?

How are these anomalies explained away by the Mormon Church? Someone mentioned that horses may have meant deer. If that is the official position, the Church is certainly straining all credibility, but whatever.

 

[RandFan]

I repeat: I did not "claim that it's a blessing to kill a child."

You said it was a blessing for a child to die.

It is not necessary for us to live a long life. Those who do not, are blessed in that their trial is short

If it's a blessing for a child to die young then anyone who murders a child is blessing that child.

 

[Janadele]

Rand... There is much I could say in response... but being restrained by the consequences of so doing, I shall merely affirm my disagreement with your posts.

 

[dafydd]

My life hasn't been a trial. I like living. Maybe wearing that underwear sours a Mormon's nature and makes them pessimistic.

 

[RandFan]

Rand... There is much I could say in response... but being restrained by the consequences of so doing, I shall merely affirm my disagreement with your posts.

Jan, it's pretty simple.

• You say it's a blessing for a child to die young.
• By that logic a murdered child is blessed.

There is nothing you can say.

The death of a child is a horrific tragedy. It doesn't matter if the child is killed by a sociopath or an invisible man in the sky.

 

[jsfisher]

Rand... There is much I could say in response... but being restrained by the consequences of so doing, I shall merely affirm my disagreement with your posts.

Your own words confirm what RandFan has stated. Perhaps you can show how they can be parsed to mean something different from what the rest of us are seeing, or perhaps you'd like to simply retract the original statement by replacing it with one you feel better matches Mormon doctrine.

 

[Janadele]

May Thy will, not mine, be done.

So, what I'd like to hear from Janadele or another spokesman for the Mormon point of view is what their policy is on prayer, or more specifically, on petitionary prayer.

 

[dafydd]

I doubt that any parents of a dead child would feel that the child had been blessed.