Arthur Conan Doyle vs. Mormons?

Great Debates
61

Well, Smilingjaws, since you lied…er, brought it up:

No, I don’t “go ballistic” and in any case, it’s not “always.” You really should learn to quit exagerating.

The worst of the Mormon bashing on this board was quite some time ago and there was no “ballistics” on my part. I addressed the lies and issues point-by-point.

The bit you mention above about “milk before meat” is a foreign concept to me. I still don’t know what the devil you and other liars are talking about.

Anyway, let’s address a couple of issues you’ve mentioned:

Heresy: in case you haven’t noticed, the LDS church finds all other churches to be heretical. That’s most likely a great example of “the pot calling the kettle black.” And the Roman Catholic Church considers all other churches heretical. Come to think of it, the Lutheran Church considers the Catholics to be heretics. If you can’t deal with that, tough.

Homosexuality: I’ve only said that I disagree with the church’s stance on governmental recognition/nonrecognition of marriage and that I consider the government’s involvement in regulating marriage to be an unconstitutional recognition of a religious rite. Apparently it was too damn easy for you to gloss over the times I’ve said that, in my personal opinion, the church is correct in its teachings about homosexuality. Apparently I’m able to deal with the differing aspects of practicing a faith and living in a multi-faith society. Scares the crap out of you, doesn’t it?

Selective Reporting:
(a) They were sued for two things, liar. They were sued for (1) posting copyrighted material and (2) after removing the copyrighted material, for posting links to that material on other sites which they knew to also be in violation of the copyright. And unless I’m a day or two behind on the news, a Federal judge will issue a final ruling shortly; the legal pundits are betting the Tanners will lose again.

(b) Wouldn’t you say that posting numerous (well, three) links to separate pages of the same site is selective? If not, then you are evidently unaware of the meaning of selective reporting.

Historical Records:

(a) You wouldn’t be referring to the possibly fraudulent testimony of anti-mormons from a hundred years ago who need the LDS gone to occupy their land, now would you? And, if so, would that be “milk before meat” or “lying for the Lord?” I want to be sure which particular strategy it is being used here.

(b) Here’s an interesting historical record for you: an individual was tried illegally and crucified by the state. Another individual was taken from a jail illegally and hanged illegally. Yet you revere one and condemn another. Who are you to condemn the murder of one and applaud the murder of the other?

62

Unless they say something that you happen to agree with; then they’re infallible.

63

Snark,
You are the nicest person and I really am sorry to hurt you. I was responding in kind to Monty (who just as I predicted, went ballistic).
I have absolutely no quarrel with you. I think you’re a really good person and I only wish you well. I am truly not trying to be disrespectful to another religion. I just think that presenting more than one side of a story is part of presenting the truth. You do a fine job of presenting your faith in a positive and loving light.
I will also reiterate that many people find great happiness and support in the mormon church and that they are now good citizens of the United States.
Peace to you.

64

pldennison wrote:

LOL, Phil. The only real way to tell if they’re speaking the truth is to have God bear witness that what they’re saying is true. This comes through personal revelation, and everyone who hears the prophets speak is entitled to a personal testimony that what they say is true, directly from God.

smilingjaws wrote:

Yet would you say to someone who had never heard of Jesus, “Say, before you decide to convert to Christianity, I’m going to tell you every little lie and distortion that the Jewish scribes and Pharisees accused Jesus of, in the interests of telling the whole truth, and I’m going to present those lies as if they actually were the truth.”?

65

Oh, and thanks for the compliment, SJ. I wish you well too. :slight_smile:

66

Smilingjaws shows the world (see SJ’s last posting above) that SJ is completely unaware of the meaning of “going ballistic.” In no way can my last posting above be considered anything other than calm. Of course, I did call SJ a liar; but that’s what happens to you when you post lies.

67

Snark,
If I was going to present the gospel to someone, I would present it in historical context. When I taught Sunday School, I used commentaries that brought that into focus. I also included information where there was some debate on the authorship of a book, its disputed time frames, archaeological facts, etc. I do think pretending that there is no controversy over these things is pointless. I would like to point out that the links I posted to were some of the teachings of your own prophets–now if you want to cite where the current prophet has disallowed these teachings that would be of great interest to me. It would not be appropriate to pretend, for example, that Joseph Smith did not intend for his followers to take away the land from the people who had purchased and settled land in Missouri claiming that God had told him to do so. It would be the honorable thing to admit it up front rather than pretending that the early Mormons were just law-abiding,peaceful citizens minding their own business and letting everyone else alone.
I don’t have a bit of trouble presenting what the pharisees (sp?) taught and doing it in historical perspective, because I think that their teachings were erroneous and quite obviously so. Since you truly believe in Joseph Smith and his actions and teachings, why should you or any other LDS member have any trouble acknowledging his words and actions–all of them? If the current prophet thinks they were wrong, then just say, OK Joseph was right on most of the stuff, but he backslid or fell from grace or whatever when he say this other thing. (ex. polygamy)
Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” I believe that applies to the history of churches and their leaders as well as the rest of history. We have to have to courage to face our past in order to truly learn from it. Sometimes it’s not real pleasant. I doubt the Swiss are too happy about the recent findings about their part in WWII. I know most of my fellow Southerners weren’t too wild about facing our racist past. But we need to be honest in order to grow.

68

Smilingjaws, what can I say? Mormons are human beings. Mormon leaders are human beings as well, complete with foibles, faults, passions and what have you. There’s no question that most or all Mormons, and even Mormon leaders, have made mistakes, sinned, made erroneous assumptions, had different understandings of the gospel and of Mormon history than the official teachings of the church, etc.

I have absolutely no problem admitting that the LDS people are human and have made mistakes in the past as well as the present. It doesn’t break down my testimony in the least. If you’re looking for perfect prophets, well, I have news for you: the only perfect prophet who ever lived on God’s green earth was Jesus Christ. All the others have been imperfect. Doesn’t destroy my faith.

69

Smilingjaws, another question: since you seem to be so intent on telling “the whole truth” about Mormonism, I have to ask you:

  1. Have you ever read the Book of Mormon? The Doctrine & Covenants? The Pearl of Great Price? Asked God, with real intent, if these books are true, after thoughtful study of them and in sincere prayer?

  2. Have you ever attended an LDS Sacrament Meeting? Sunday School? Have you ever even been inside an LDS church?

  3. Ever had the LDS missionary discussions in your home (or elsewhere)?

Your propensity for quoting anti-LDS web sites leaves me wondering whether you’ve ever had the positive side of Mormonism presented to you at all, or if you’ve just dismissed all “faith-promoting” materials as being unduly biased, and all faith-destroying materials as truth.

70

my Snark,I read somewhere (can’t remember) that you couldn’t be considered a "prophet’ unless you were Always accurate.Yes? No?

71

Orangecakes, here’s a quote from my Old Testament religion manual:

Prophets are not infallible, according to LDS belief.

72

Orangecakes, you might want to go to the following web page for a more comprehensive answer to your question about prophets having to be 100% accurate:
http://www.mormons.org/

Then go down the list on the left side until you come to “Accusatory Questions.” Click on that, then on “Church History,” then on question #3, which will hopefully answer your question. I’d give a full link to this web page, but I can’t figure out how to get the page’s web address to show on the browser. Here’s a partial quote from it:

There are two other articles on this page that explain the nature of a prophet and his prophecies rather well.

73

Finally, and this is key to understanding the whole concept, a prophet’s job is strictly telling people what God wants them to know. To quote an old line, he doesn’t foretell the future; he forthtells the word of God. Predictive accuracy, when present, is a seal of accuracy on his work (and notice that, as Snark pointed out, most predictive prophesies are conditional, in the form “Repent or {evil result X} will come down on you.” So many but not all people repent, evil result X does not occur, and the doubters say, “Aha, false prophet! He said, ‘evil result X’ and it didn’t happen!” The prophet’s job is to convey a message, not to tell fortunes. Regardless of how I may feel about the Mormon Church’s theology, their prophets work in the grand tradition, and deserve the same respect and grounds for judgment of the old-line ones.

74

I feel it worthwhile to comment on two other topics directly involving the Mormons: Race relations and marriage.
Race relations: I refer Snark, et. al., to Moses 7:22 in ]Pearl of Great Price: “The seed of Cain were black!” (Interestingly enough, despite the popular notion that Noah’s statement “cursed be Canaan” allegedly justifies any kind of white bigotry, the black races descend from Cush, Canaan’s brother; cf. Genesis 9:25, 10:6; Acts 17:26. :slight_smile:
Marriage: According to the legal ensyclopedia Corpus Juris Secundum, the main Supreme Court case dealing with polygamy, was (subject to correction) Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333, 10 S. Ct. 299, 33 L. Ed. 637; 1890. After the court ruled on this–apparently this matter had to be settled at the Federal level as a condition to Utah’s statehood, which came in 1896–the Mormons’ Woodruff Manifesto was promulgated, despite Joseph Smith’s 1843 revelation on polygamy. (He first practiced polygamy in 1838, five years before the “revelation.” Compare Jacob 2:23-25 in the [Book of Mormon.) Though the Woodruff Manifesto was issued in 1890, after the Supreme Court ruling, the revelation was not rescinded–wouldn’t this have been a proper time for further sections of the “golden plates” to be revealed? If the revelation of polygamy was from God, however, it was certainly right, and no revelation, manifesto, or Supreme Court ruling could properly interfere–especially given the “free exercise” clause in the First Amendment. If God did authorize it, ity should be practiced.–Acts 5:29, 35-39.

75

Dougie, Mormons aren’t prejudiced against blacks. Just because the book of Moses says that the seed of Cain is black (note that there is no exclamation point in the verse you quoted), doesn’t mean they are to be discriminated against. Here’s a couple of scriptural quotes:

As for your other statement about polygamy, I refer you to this web page:
http://www.mormons.org/response/qa/doctrines_changed.htm

Hope this helps. :slight_smile:

76

Snark or Snarkberry or any other Mormon among the Teeming Millions may be able to answer this question for me:
I read somewhere years ago that a Mormon “revelation” said “There are many Gods, each is polygamous. You must learn to be a god yourself.”
Granted the polygamy topic is discussed through that hyperlink…how about the other topic in my quotation?

77

Dougie, let me make this easy for you. What I do whenever you ask me a question about Mormonism is this: I first go to
http://www.mormons.org/

and then scroll down to the “Search” function in the main frame. Then I enter a relevant word into the search engine (Hotbot), press “enter” and look through the possible web pages to refer you to. That’s all. So I figure I can save you some trouble by telling you this. Just search for it yourself. Is that so hard? Or ask a worthy Latter-day Saint. I’m not the “Mormon Answerman.” Chances are, you can find the same sites that I refer you to, just as easily as I can. I’m not trying to be mean, but I’m getting tired of this game of scribes and Pharisees. Maybe someone else can take over. I’m gonna take a rest from the SDMB. Good luck finding your answers. :slight_smile:

78

I’m sorry, Dougie. That was inappropriate, and I feel like I shouldn’t have said it. I’m under a lot of stress lately in my personal life, and after all, I’m the one who took it upon himself to discuss Mormonism with you. No one made me post in this or other threads about the LDS faith.

So what was your question?

79

I’ll tell you what, Snark…I will be fair enough to check the references you give me–I like doing research–after all, as a paralegal I do plenty of it. Granted the source of a leaflet I acquired more than 20 years ago was itself second-hand; in a thick scrapbook I keep (one of five) I had typed the various points about the Book of Mormon vis-a-vis the Bible; since I got my own copy of the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenant (in used-book stores), I have corrected the quotations my source used. You were right about the quotes from Moses 7:22 not having an exclamation point; in my copy a comma follows the phrase.
All the same, I must point out that I did click the hyperlink you gave me considering polygamy; if I understand it aright, it says that the revelation was “temporary,” although, near as I can determine, there was no documentation given in this website to show that Smith’s revelation was rescinded after Davis v. Beason.
So I will follow your suggestions up, and I assure you that if you got the impression I was spoiling for a fight–well, I just gave the wrong impression, although it is true that I disagree with you on the main subject.

80

Fair enough. :slight_smile: It’s just that so many people think it’s their duty to “disprove” my religion, I get a little tired of it.

Anyway, here’s a quote from that web page:

So the commandment to practice plural marriage was only temporarily suspended, since the U.S. Government was going to take the Church’s assetts if they didn’t stop the practice.