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Tom Haws wrote:
Hey, cwald, feel free to give an “inspired translation” (The Cwald Translation) of my little thought. …
Nope.
I actually like you, and respect your opinion —- just not on this occasion.
Plus – that might be to NOM like.
🙂 Old-Timer wrote:Just something to consider about the talk, in general: …..
Iow, I am very glad that our current apostles and Prophets don’t speculate to the extent that former ones did, but I’m not ready to write off this particular “fundamental” at the most basic level.
Yeah, I think in order to understand the the talk, one must understand the history behind it. You take all that description that Ray said, wrap up in bun like SD describes, plus you have to consider what was happening with the civil rights and the ERA, and the Intellectual Purge that was just getting ramped up — and bam! We’re stuck with a hard core “obedience to authority at all costs” philosophy that just won’t go away.
Perhaps why F5 is not an issue for me is, what if ETB (oooops – I can’t do that anymore) I mean President Ezra Taft Benson, had said the exact opposite? What if instead he said that “a prophet must be educated in the field of science or law etc etc to speak on any topic related to that area?” People on this board, myself included, would go nuts and cry foul. We get up here and spout off all kind of theory and philosophy about stuff we have never “studied in grad school” and I think it’s pretty darn “accurate” and “wise” and “inspired” for the most part. I’m not going to dismiss it out of hand just because SD didn’t attend an Ivy League school. No, I’m okay with F5 as a blanket statement. Take out the other 13Fs and the horrible commentary that goes with them, and it might make a pretty good GC (ooops – I did it again) I mean General Conference talk.
I have been thinking about this and well it just seems strange. Here we have someone claiming a prophet can say whatever he needs to and it is gospel. It is not even the prophet himself making the claim but a subordinate. So we have a guy claiming that another guy can speak for God. Where is God saying this is who speaks for me? Everyone runs around saying so and so is spouting the will of God. Listen to the wisdom and heed the council. I just wish God would make it a habit of speaking for himself. cwald wrote:Perhaps why F5 is not an issue for me is, what if ETB (oooops – I can’t do that anymore) I mean President Ezra Taft Benson, had said the exact opposite? What if instead he said that “a prophet must be educated in the field of science or law etc etc to speak on any topic related to that area?” People on this board, myself included, would go nuts and cry foul. We get up here and spout off all kind of theory and philosophy about stuff we have never “studied in grad school” and I think it’s pretty darn “accurate” and “wise” and “inspired” for the most part. I’m not going to dismiss it out of hand just because SD didn’t attend an Ivy League school.
No, I’m okay with F5 as a blanket statement. Take out the other 13Fs and the horrible commentary that goes with them, and it might make a pretty good GC (ooops – I did it again) I mean General Conference talk.
You are funny, cwald. And I totally agree about F5. BTW, I actually think I went overboard suggesting that anybody would be offended by “ETB” or “SWK”. People seem to be mainly respectful of the living prophet. Maybe passersby would think, “It’s another apostate site” upon seeing TSM or TBM. But on the other hand, if that’s how they talk at the Millenial Star, well, then, we all know who is out of touch.
:silent: Tom: A a newcomer here emerging from TBM status and having a hard time keeping myself active in the Church a little over a year ago, my first impression wasn’t negative on the use of TBM, GBH etcetera. I just looked at the acronyms as part of the Internet culture, and a convenience when communicating using a text-based medium. It did take a while to figure out all the lingo like DH, SP, BP etcetera, but I find it simply a great convenience when typing ideas.
I do object to people calling prophets with nicknames like Gordie Hinckley, Joe Smith and Tommy Monson, however, but I don’t object to the acronymns, just like I don’t object to being called SD.
Others may view it differently, but that was my experience as a newbie.
cwald wrote:What if instead he said that “a prophet must be educated in the field of science or law etc etc to speak on any topic related to that area?” People on this board, myself included, would go nuts and cry foul.
This is an
excellentpoint, cwald. I want to be led by a prophet was called by God, not graduated to the position by his own merits. I totally agree with you that such a statement would be equally hard to swallow.
I guess that is why I think with most things there is a middle ground to balance out the 2 extremes, and I don’t get bent out of shape by hearing either of the two extremes alone.
On one end, you have a mortal who makes mistakes and does the best he can with the human abilities and intellect he has. When I consider the prophet is an imperfect mortal who has to brush his teeth like the rest of us, I must be cautious to keep my obedience in check with my own spiritual guidance and intellect to confirm and sustain him in his position, while not surrendering my own choice to blind obedience. The extreme is to only view him as a man with no greater gift than my own revelation.
On the other end, the prophet is a man called of God, who can be used as a mouthpiece for God to the rest of us and that God can inspire and sustain him to do greater things than just what he could do with his own learning and intellect, for he truly does have the love and power and authority to lead in spiritual matters. This extreme would suggest I should obey with exactness and feel my obedience will bless me, even if that guidance changes over time or if I disagree with it, because he is closer to God than I am and I should accept his words as scripture.
I think I try to fall somewhere in between these two extremes. I think the talks using the F14 are emphasizing the second point more than the first, because that can be a helpful message to many to be reminded of the reverence and faith we should have in the prophet (as Ray pointed out). However, there are plenty of other scriptural and GC talks to support the other extreme (i.e. Joseph Smith liked to wrestle and play sports with kids, BY quotes warning against blind obedience, David O McKay wanted his Coke and rum bread, etc).
And so, it truly becomes my journey to find where I fall in between the two, and glean from the F14 what I can as I fill my plate at the buffet for what truly nourishes my soul.
Old-Timer wrote:Pres. Benson gave this address at BYU while he was Pres. of the Q12 – NOT when he was the President of the Church…much of the criticism directed at the President at the time the talk was given was that they were out-of-touch old guys who never attended Divinity School and weren’t classically educated in many of the subjects about which they were speaking – like race relations, evolution, etc…
if it is used to dismiss everything they say about “anything” about which they don’t have special training . . . that seems like a denial of inspiration / revelation…Iow, I am very glad that our current apostles and Prophets don’t speculate to the extent that former ones did, but I’m not ready to write off this particular “fundamental” at the most basic level. cwald wrote:Perhaps why F5 is not an issue for me is, what if…President Ezra Taft Benson, had said the exact opposite?
What if instead he said that “a prophet must be educated in the field of science or law etc etc to speak on any topic related to that area?”People on this board, myself included, would go nuts and cry foul…No, I’m okay with F5 as a blanket statement. Take out the other 13Fs and the horrible commentary that goes with them, and it might make a pretty good GC I agree that the prophets should not be required to have a PhD or specialized training to say what they feel is necessary to lead the Church. However, the reason this point bothers me more than it does some of the others that have commented on it is because to me it sounds like what Benson was really getting at is that not only can the prophet say whatever he wants to about any subject but that members should also be expected to believe whatever he says no matter what as if prophets are instant experts in every case.
It seems like the general idea behind this is the assumption that revelations should supposedly trump any “earthly knowledge” without fail. Meanwhile any lack of new revelations is simply interpreted as confirmation that all the supposed revelations by previous prophets are sufficient to draw on at this point. The problem is that many of these assumed “revelations” contradict each other or look like they are clearly wrong based on some of the existing evidence we have.
Another concern about this point is that sometimes Church leaders give the impression that they don’t even want to listen to any outside ideas or knowledge in many cases because they assume they already have all the answers we really need. The way I see it this fundamental basically validates and encourages something of a head-in-the-sand mindset for Church leaders and members alike. This attitude doesn’t really make sense to me because it seems like any real revelations should theoretically supplement and agree with other sources of knowledge not be a substitute for outside knowledge that forces people to choose one over the other.
Yes, I agree with all that DA. If the church wants to insist that the world is flat, even though everyone with half brain knows is it round, than we have a problem. Maybe I’m wrong, but with the exception of Elder Boyd K. Packer, I’m not sure our current Prophets in the last 20-30 years have done that, have they? Long gone are the days of green men on the moon and god created the world in seven days, I can think of two glaring issues facing the church right now where science has “backed them into a corner.” Gays and the WoW. It seems that the church has REALLY backed down on the whole gay issue (except BKP), and the official stance of the church is “we don’t know why people are gay, but we expect them to follow the law of chasity…”
I’m sure the Prophets beleive the WoW is a health code – and even though they read that a cup of tea and red wine is good for you, they probably justify not changing anything because they don’t believe the majority of hte people could handle the changes without addiction problems and such.
Also – it seems like the church is not fighting the DNA evidence that clearly proves that American Indians are not the principle ancestors of the BoM.
Anyway – my point is, your concern is valid, and if our prophets come out and say something that makes no sense and goes against what science clearly has proven otherwise, I hope the people don’t believe it or follow it – but I have not seen that recently and I just don’t see it happening today.
Compared to some of the others I actually don’t have much of a problem with this. cwald wrote:Yes, I agree with all that DA. If the church wants to insist that the world is flat, even though everyone with half brain knows is it round, than we have a problem. Maybe I’m wrong, but
with the exception of Elder Boyd K. Packer, I’m not sure our current Prophets in the last 20-30 years have done that, have they?Long gone are the days of green men on the moon and god created the world in seven days, I can think of two glaring issues facing the church right now where science has “backed them into a corner.” Gays and the WoW. It seems that the church has REALLY backed down on the whole gay issue (except BKP), and the official stance of the church is “we don’t know why people are gay, but we expect them to follow the law of chasity…” …Anyway – my point is, your concern is valid, and
if our prophets come out and say something that makes no sense and goes against what science clearly has proven otherwise, I hope the people don’t believe it or follow it – but I have not seen that recently and I just don’t see it happening today.Recently it seems like the prophets have learned their lesson and have been a bit more careful and subtle about what they say than in the past by relying more on relatively uncontroversial platitudes and cute little feel-good stories to make their points in many cases. However, even in the last conference Thomas S. Monson was still harping on the highly questionable idea that members should be expected to make extreme sacrifices in this life mostly for the sake of a hypothetical promised eternal reward in the next life as well as implying that supposed “sins” like drinking and smoking are often a slippery slope that the devil uses to control members and lead them down the path to eternal condemnation.
Sure some of this is not an exact science when we start to deal with peoples’ value judgments but I’m not so sure that this is the specific message TSM would really want to present if he was paying that much attention to some of the current trends like the increasing popularity of atheism, agnosticism, and the widespread rejection of traditional organized religion even by many believers. Reading part of Gordon B. Hinckley’s book “Standing for Something” he told some story about how some young unmarried LDS couple’s hopes and dreams were shattered forever due to an unexpected pregnancy. My first thought was suppose they had taken some effective precautions to prevent this unwanted pregnancy and did not belong to a church that uses public shaming as a manipulation tool to further their own agenda; how much of a tragedy or problem would we really be left with in that case? It seems to me that the suffering in this case was not really a universal and necessary consequence of the supposed “sinful” behavior the way GBH suggests.
Also we still have the Church’s never ending and un-winnable war on porn that has only increased in the level of emphasis in the last 20 years because of the internet. Have the prophets in the last 20-30 years paid much attention to what any unbiased physicians or psychologists have said about it or the large number of people worldwide that have not experienced any real problems as a direct result of this supposedly terrible epidemic? I really doubt it because the Church continues to give members a huge guilt-trip about this to the point that some have even committed suicide. Honestly, I don’t really expect them to openly endorse porn, pre-marital sex, drinking in moderation, etc. but I just don’t think it would hurt anything for them to pay a little more attention to the outside world with an open-mind rather than categorically rejecting it as mostly evil and wrong and then acting so dogmatic about having all the answers in direct conflict with the typical experience of the rest of the free world in a few cases like this.
I’m going to lock this thread soon and start the one for number 6. Just letting everyone know in advance this time. 😳
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