Would I have followed an anitchirst

[Anonymous]

Ok so first I have to admit I don’t know much about these people we talked about in SS. The lesson talked about Nehor and Korihor and what repentance was about. The thing that got me thinking was when someone summarized what Nehor and Korihor taught. The person said that they taught a loving God will forgive all of us and there’s no need to worry about hell and we just need to follow the rules of society.

Their summary sounded a lot like how I think (that we should be good people and God will forgive us, we might have to suffer for some of our sins but not all eternity) and then I realized Nehor and Korihor are labeled as anti christ so I got worried. Can anyone better explain their teachings?

[Anonymous]

I too have also felt that their arguments were compelling. I think the “sin a little” and there’s no harm in it argument is “anti-Christ” because it makes his sacrifice for sin void. In the Christ narrative, we all sin, and we can only come back to God’s presence through Jesus’ atonement. So if that’s not necessary (as Nehor says) then Christ wasn’t necessary. The other narrative is that there is no God, so therefore no Christ. The first argument says you don’t have to come to Christ because it will all be all right either way. The second one says you don’t need to come to Christ because there is no Christ; he’s just a foolish tradition. So both arguments reduce the need to come to Christ.

Others, please correct me if you see it differently. I hope I didn’t get the 2 guys mixed up.

[Anonymous]

doubting mom wrote:

Ok so first I have to admit I don’t know much about these people we talked about in SS. The lesson talked about Nehor and Korihor and what repentance was about. The thing that got me thinking was when someone summarized what Nehor and Korihor taught. The person said that they taught a loving God will forgive all of us and there’s no need to worry about hell and we just need to follow the rules of society…Their summary sounded a lot like how I think (that we should be good people and God will forgive us, we might have to suffer for some of our sins but not all eternity) and then I realized Nehor and Korihor are labeled as anti christ so I got worried. Can anyone better explain their teachings?

I think these stories were included as examples of fairly common “heresies” we can expect to find sometimes. Korihor was basically a stereotypical loud-mouthed atheist/skeptic stock character. Nehor promoted the ideas of universal salvation without repentance and “priestcraft” or basically religious leaders telling people what they want to hear for the sake of popularity and personal profit (Alma 1:3). I think the general idea was to forewarn readers that some people will intevitably think and act this way but they are supposedly wrong and the debate has already been settled.

However, I don’t remember any convincing refutation of these supposed false doctrines. To me it sounds like we are basically expected to believe these ideas are bad simply because whoever wrote the Book of Mormon said so which doesn’t really help show why exactly they are completely wrong especially if you already don’t believe that the Book of Mormon is necessarily inspired to begin with. Maybe people saying things like this have a valid point to some extent even if you don’t agree with everything they say. Once we are basically dealing with pure speculation or hearsay about what is unknown (what exactly will happen after we die) then I don’t see why any individual opinion about it should automatically be given preference over others.

[Anonymous]

Don’t forget Sherem either.

Just to confuse you, there’s also a Corihor…

[Author]

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