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This thread is the first I’ve heard about this change in the wording. I don’t think we can call it a lie without knowing the intentions, but if it was written into our doctrine and claimed to be a direct revelation from God by Joseph Smith-wouldn’t that actually make it a false prophesy? Since we’re getting technical here. I think all that proves is that we do believe our prophets are fallible-even when they claim to be speaking fo God. So it is our responsibility to get our own witnesses of the truthfulness of what they are telling us. Quote:if it was written into our doctrine and claimed to be a direct revelation from God by Joseph Smith-wouldn’t that actually make it a false prophesy?
HSAB, it was included in the non-scriptural part of the explanation about the Book of Mormon and never was claimed to have been direct revelation from God. We have assumed it was something Joseph claimed Moroni told him, but there is no direct statement claiming that it was “direct revelation from God”. Also, there is no way it can be called “prophesy” in any important sense of that word.
That’s a big part of my point: It appears to have been an assumption that was compounded by subsequent assumptions. Sure, it became “doctrine” in the general sense that it ended up being recorded and taught, but there never has been any explicit “revelatory foundation” for it. To me, it falls under the exact same general category as the justifications for the Priesthood ban – things assumed and justified accordingly. There is no “lie” in any of that, just incorrect assumptions.
Quote:….But…. and it’s Big but, but we have to want it.
heeheeheehee….DBMormon said he wants a big Butt!
sorry…my wife is right…I am a 6 year old in a 47 year old body
I appreciate the thoughtful response. I think we are living in different worlds (meaning we see the world quite differently). I don’t get into semantics about words and not true and lie mean the same thing to me. Also maybe you are saying an unintentional lie is not a lie? How about stating things as fact when it is only your opinion? I think we see a lot of this and it is as destructive as a full outright I know it is wrong lie. To me it seems pretty clear cut that there is a delta between the church story and the science story. I feel that if I tried to use semantics to see it another way then I am really just deceiving myself. Thank you for your pov. I like when people disagree with me (my wife is good at that too). As a side note we are visiting the Mayan ruins soon near Cancun. There are a couple of lds themed tours still trying to claim those ruins are from the nephites. I may have to suffer through one of these with my tbm family. Do you think the Mayan ruins are from the bom? I don’t and it will be hard to hold my tongue while they try to make scripture fit the ruins.
I think the nephites lived among the people of the area, that doesn’t mean each or any of the buildings you view are “nephite” or “Lamanite” but yes I do think that is the area they were at. And yes I do share my opinion as truth, but it is my truth. Truth is perspective and perception. There is an actual answer whether something happened or not, but without video evidence, or other “proof” all is conjecture.
My struggle is this – Many here claim the inability to believe the church is what it claims because of science – what science proves the church is not what it claims, what other studies or sciences proves this angle?
DBMormon wrote:I think the nephites lived among the people of the area, that doesn’t mean each or any of the buildings you view are “nephite” or “Lamanite” but yes I do think that is the area they were at.
And yes I do share my opinion as truth, but it is my truth. Truth is perspective and perception. There is an actual answer whether something happened or not, but without video evidence, or other “proof” all is conjecture.
My struggle is this – Many here claim the inability to believe the church is what it claims because of science – what science proves the church is not what it claims, what other studies or sciences proves this angle?
In my view the whole science / God thing cuts both ways. When science partially supports (or at least doesn’t disprove) something then LDS latch on quickly. Think Mayan archeology – although I’m not convinced personally. OTOH when science tends to disprove God the LDS reject the science outright (maybe not always but in many cases). Think astronomy and biology.
Any God worth His salt can keep science from discovering him – the thing is that the God of the gaps is shrinking.
To me Faith is what it’s all about. If we have to rely on science to back up any aspect of our religion we’re asking for trouble – and asking to be disproved.
Thanks for the response, Brian. I just think when we are talking about “non-truth” and “lie” we aren’t talking about opposites – and I think the difference is way more than sematics and is critical. Opposites would be “non-truth vs. truth” and “sincere statement vs. lie”. One deals with
accuracy of content; the other deals with intent. Accuracy and intent are very different things. I think this is important, particularly, because “non-truth” carries no negative connotations regarding intent in our society, while “lie” is a pretty extreme pejorative term. For example, if someone says things that aren’t true out of ignorance, we might call him “ignorant” or “misguided” or “blind” or even “stupid” – but we wouldn’t think of calling that same person a “liar”.
That, really, is my only point – that it’s important to speak as precisely as possible in cases like this, since calling sincere but incorrect / ignorant people “liars” carries SO much baggage beyond just that their sincere opinions were wrong.
So Ray, what would you call someone who used a picture of JS setting a a table translating the golden plates with a blanket between the plates and the transcriber? My question is when we use deceit because we want to make something appear more normal or less weird ie the painting of all three witnesses with the plates and Moroni, the visit of Moroni to JS in his room on the second floor of his three room house where he had to share his bed with at two other brother, the the church published picture only shows JS and the angle. Are these lies, deceptions, part truths or done for a more pure reason? I think the church has been deceptive on purpose kInd of like Paul H Dunn not to lie per say but to try to make the church/gospel more appealing and to motivate. Opinions? church0333 wrote:So Ray, what would you call someone who used a picture of JS setting a a table translating the golden plates with a blanket between the plates and the transcriber? My question is when we use deceit because we want to make something appear more normal or less weird ie the painting of all three witnesses with the plates and Moroni, the visit of Moroni to JS in his room on the second floor of his three room house where he had to share his bed with at two other brother, the the church published picture only shows JS and the angle. Are these lies, deceptions, part truths or done for a more pure reason? I think the church has been deceptive on purpose kInd of like Paul H Dunn not to lie per say but to try to make the church/gospel more appealing and to motivate. Opinions?
If permitted to throw an answer into the ring on this one. Who was being dishonest, the artist whose impression of how the event occurred is how he painted it? The committee that approved it who themselves are perhaps naive to exactly how the exact details transpired? We have the blessing of the internet, but 20 years ago, I see it as extremely difficult to assume that all in the hierarchy of the church and those who serve on the committees knew the ins and outs of the translation or put much time in thinking about who was in the bedroom when Moroni came. How long has the church owned these historical sites?, how long have the building been rebuilt? how long have these stories been available to the common church member?
Some have aware and for whatever reasons chose to paint the story in a light that would seem more appropriate to their time. It is unfortunate but the acceptable methods of history were different then too. We gauge the past by our standards but past times had their own standards.
With Elder Dunn, I am offended as anyone with the behavior you speak of, while I am sure he did a ton of Good, and spent many sad days wishing he never had, he also was deceptive and eventually apologized.
I do not see the issues you raise as a church wide tactic to suppress truth but rather but me, and you, and the church all coming to realize that we have some progress to make in our understanding of these founding events. I would be surprised if the art in 10 years is not drastically more historically accurate and unfortunately these things do take time.
The leaders and employees of the church are just becoming aware of all of this as much as many of us have.
DB I can accept that. I know that I have shared experiences that happened to to me when I was a young boy and when I talk to my siblings or Dad he remembers the story differently. It doesn’t make any of liars but it does caution me to try to be more accurate in the things I say. But going back to Paul Dunn, basically the church did try to cover it up and fired the guy who broke the story. There was no statement or apologizing from the church, they just put Brother Dunn on emeritus status . I hope they are better in the future with how they represent our history. I understand why politicians try to spin things but I personally expect more from the church that expects so much from me. But come to think of it I hear all the time how my HT claim they did 100 percent HT when I having have a visit in about a year and when I told my HPGL he just shrugged. I guess we all are just human. Frankly, in the case of the translation, there were multiple methods used at different times – and not very many people know that. Most people assume it all happened as depicted in that picture or that it all happened with Joseph’s head covered in a hat. The artist picked one method that wasn’t the “primary” method – that was quite a minor method when measured in time and content delivered. I would LOVE to see a depiction of the head-in-the-hat method, but I’m not about to call the common depiction a “lie” – since part of the translation seems to have taken place in that manner or something very similar to it and since the artist might have thought that was the primary or only method.
It’s the same basic answer I give when questioned about why the church doesn’t depict Joseph as a polygamist in its art and other visual depictions.
I had that conversation a little while ago with someone on my personal blog, and I pointed out that Joseph wasn’t a “polygamist” in the sense that pretty much everyone on the planet pictures a polygamist. That word conjures images of men who live actively with more than one wife and have children from multiple women who all know him as their father. The Church admits openly that Joseph initiated polygamy, but depicting him visually with a wife other than Emma would be more misleading and inaccurate than the way he is depicted visually with only Emma. He actually did live only with Emma; as far as we know, he had children only with Emma, rumors of two or three other kids notwithstanding; he wasn’t married to the others in the traditional sense we envision when we think of polygamy; etc. Thus, I have no problem with visual depictions of Joseph as a married man being limited to Emma, while written descriptions of polygamy acknowledge it was Joseph who started it.
Back to the main point of the post, I wrote the following just now at another blog and realized how it applies to this thread, as well – so I am copying it here: Quote:I have found the most profound insights often come from people from whom I naturally would not expect to be able to learn anything – and they have come almost always when I am in the right frame of mind to listen carefully to what someone is trying to say and not get so caught up in crafting a response that I forget to listen to everything they say prior to reaching a conclusion about what I assume they are going to say.
For example, I have had too many experiences of not liking what someone has said in General Conference and then realizing they really didn’t say what I had heard when I read the talk afterward. In nearly all cases, the disconnect was my focusing so intently on one statement that I failed to hear the surrounding statements or consider context enough to realize that I had misconstrued the original statement and turned it into something other than what had been intended. That same experience has occurred in conversations with fellow members, with talks they give in Sacrament Meeting, with co-workers, with my wife and children, while reading blog posts and comments, etc – and
it generally is because I was thinking of a response before they were done talking or before I was done reading. If it happens with people from whom I want to learn, I know it happens even more frequently with people from whom I am not as inclined naturally to want to learn.
I have learned over the years to try to listen to everyone (their voice, in person, and their words, in a forum like this) with the primary purpose of learning from them rather than arguing with them – and, while I am not yet perfect at it, the result has been amazing to me. I truly have been able to learn from people from whom I didn’t expect to learn anything.
Brian-I absolutely LOVED those ruins! I’ve been to three in that area. Which ones are you going to? I did not go on a Mormon tour when I was there, but I actually think that would have been very interesting. I’ve studied quite a bit about the geographical history of the bom (had an atheist ex who REALLY wanted to prove me wrong.) and I honestly think there is enough evidence there to support at least the possibility of the Mayan culture tying in with the Bom characters.
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