Plutarch Wants to Debate McCue or Bachman

[_Runtu]

I do. But it can become obsessive and counter-productive if it goes on forever.

I completely agree with you, Ray. I have seen some people who go years venting and obsessively going after the church, and that indeed is not productive. I guess my experience with RfM is anecdotal, but most everyone I have known who has posted and then left RfM left because they felt they didn't need to express those feelings anymore. If that's a superficial analysis, so be it. But in my opinion the idea that it's some cesspool of obsessive hatred is at least equally as superficial an analysis.

[_Ray A]

But in my opinion the idea that it's some cesspool of obsessive hatred is at least equally as superficial an analysis.

I think some posters on RFM are quite informed, like my old "sparring buddy" Deconstructor. He has a very informative website and seems to often hit the bulls eye. In regard to whitewashing, for example, see this:

http://www.i4m.com/think/intro/mormon_leaders.htm

He presents evidence that's hard to refute, and that's fine, I have no problem with that approach. And where leaders do know information that they think should be whitewashed or concealed, to preserve faith, I disagree with that approach (I'm in line with the New Mormon Historians), but it's unrealistic to expect them to shoot themselves in the foot by revealing all this. If you are a true believer and a defender, of course you're not going to give "the enemy" information they can use against you. So this is Deconstructor's simple one line conclusion:

So can we trust these mortal men to always tell us the truth?

So I'm not suggesting the church leaders are "off the hook", nor what they do is right in this regard. But if you understand "the nature of the beast", you don't trust the beast. I mentioned in a much earlier thread about my brief encounter with Truman Madsen, and how I never trusted his historical writing after that, and this was back in 1983 after I read his bio of B.H. Roberts, Defender of the Faith. I don't have to go on forums and curse Bro. Madsen, his omissions in a purported biography were enough for me. The same with Francis Gibbons. I bought his bio of Brigham Young, and that was the first and last book I ever bought written by Gibbons. I felt that even American Moses whitewashed too much. So what's the solution? Inform people. Write your own critical reviews, on Amazon or where ever you can. Getting angry won't solve anything. But if you feel RFM helped you, and you're able to see things more clearly now, then it was helpful to you. I just caught one of Tal's posts, in which he wrote about the "style" of RFM:

Anyway, I closely followed the style of many of my RFM posts - cranky, sarcastic, gratuitously offensive, you know, the usual...

You're not wrong , Tal.

For the full context, see: RFM

And incidentally, I agree with his points in this thread.

Edit: Follow Tal's debates on this thread linked above:

It's hard for me to believe that some people on here can be zero-tolerance zealots incapable of contemplating any conceivable circumstances in which a parent could ever be excused for a swat, and yet at the same time probably look with unbridled scorn on anyone who has moral reservations about abortion - obviously by definition, not just a painful procedure, but a lethal one. How does that make sense?

(my emphasis)

Yeah, Tal, your exmo buddies are indeed capable of being "zero-tolerance zealots" when it suits them. Let's see if you can handle the bigotry on RFM better than Benson. Hope you have a great learning experience.

[_Jason Bourne]

No Ray. Take this example. Here you have a book that DOM was going to repudiate. The author publishes it twice behind the FPs back. They were livid. They were going to repudiate it. But they didn't. Why? They were worried that it would damage the image of Elder McConkie in the members eyes. So for years the book becomes defacto next to scripture for many members and it is relief on by church writers of manuals, and was quoted extensively. DOM should have had the back bone to repudiate it. But nope, he let it stand and thus members get their doctrine from an in accurate source. Just look at how the apologists run from the book today and pan it.

Jason, this exonerates the very point I'm making. From memory, MD was first published in 1958. The McKay presidency is the one which wanted to can it. But Pres. McKay's presidency was hampered by his illnesses, and eventual death. Then Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce McConkie's father-in-law, became president and MD was safe from canning. Then the church went through FIVE presidents with MD as a "supplement" to the scriptures. The edition I have is the 18th printing in 1998, paperback, numerous errors still intact. So are the "sheep" just gullible? Not all, many members finally work up to the fact that MD was riddled with errors. I wanted to write a book length critique of it.

Most members get their knowledge from Church lessons, manuals, etc. where it is instructed not to deviate from the prescribed material. Try in a GD class to bring up material from Mormon Enigma when discussing polygamy. Ask about polyandry. And how about debating all the controversial issues on succession at Joseph Smith's death. The only thing members know about that is the one that the Church holds too... the apostolic succession. Never is their a discussion about William Marks, Joseph Smith 3 etc. And for reading most read the scriptures if anything. Some may read books by GAs and other popular accepted authors. Members just don't go out of their way to read books that may challenge them and many do not even know of their existence.

To my highlighted portion of your post, whose fault is that? I have been a GD teacher, and I know exactly what you're saying. In fact I discovered that few members even knew what FARMS was! Yet how long had I been trying to tell them about FARMS? Since 1983, because I was an original FARMS volunteer, which I quit in 1987 after a five or six page letter to its founder, Jack Welch, telling him there was too much propaganda at FARMS and they were not being self-critical enough. When Dan Peterson became editor FARMS went upwards, and really started tackling the difficult issues, and even taking on the Tanners, which the church had formerly discouraged. Dan was criticised by members for his in-your-face criticisms on anti-Mormons. So they were just NOT INTERESTED. Whose fault is that? They complained that because Dan was "exposing" Mormons to anti material in reviews he was unwittingly putting them "in the know". And they did not want to know!

I was brought up LDS. After being indoctrinate as a youth how easy would it be for me to go out and search all to various issues? I did it because I was challenged by critics and became a hobby apologist. I also love history. And what I found has not really give with the faithful history the church teaches an Elder Packer espouses. Bushman's book may be the first step in the direction of the Church being more open about its history. But that book was not published by a church owned business. Does DB sell it? I do not know.

I have heard that many members are discouraging reading of Rough Stone Rolling, so when they finally wake up ten years down the track, and see the truth, WHO are they going to blame, the church? That is just hilarious!

So I think you are flat out wrong that it is the members faults that they do not know the other side so to speak. The Church leadership discourages it. Many members are proud that they would never read anything critical. I hear such comments all the time. Life time members think Plural marriage was to help the poor pioneer women who had lost husbands. The Church wants to keep the members dumped down. Just look at the current lesson manuals. Why they do not even probe the more unique and interesting doctrines of Mormonism anymore.

Honestly, I cannot see how you conclude what you conclude.

You just gave me CHECKMATE! See my bolded portions of your post. Is the church to blame for this, or the members who are "proud that they would never read anything critical"? Are you suggesting that they are THAT stupid? Hmmm, maybe.

Yes, yes but this is fostered by the Top. Don't deviate from the manual, a rigid faithful history portraying an almost mythical founding, leaders discouraging reading critical material and so forth. This the pride in not reading anything critical.

But it is a dilemma. When bemoaning this to me good friend and MY SP one time, who has many similar concerns but is more practical, perhaps as you are, he said "Ok. How would you have the Church do it? How should the Church teach a more open history and at the same time build faith and the kingdom." I did not have an answer then and am not sure I do now. RSR is a good start. But one could also say "If and open history would really destroy the faith and the Kingdom maybe the kingdom is not worth building faith in.

Jason

[_Ray A]

Yes, yes but this is fostered by the Top. Don't deviate from the manual, a rigid faithful history portraying an almost mythical founding, leaders discouraging reading critical material and so forth. This the pride in not reading anything critical.

But it is a dilemma. When bemoaning this to me good friend and MY SP one time, who has many similar concerns but is more practical, perhaps as you are, he said "Ok. How would you have the Church do it? How should the Church teach a more open history and at the same time build faith and the kingdom." I did not have an answer then and am not sure I do now. RSR is a good start. But one could also say "If and open history would really destroy the faith and the Kingdom maybe the kingdom is not worth building faith in.

Jason

This is why Quinn said, "the unexamined faith is not worth having". But I don't think the leaders liked Quinn's version of Mormonism. For example, there are several references to Joseph Smith's vision of Moroni being a dream, not a veridical appearance. How would that change the nature of Sunday School classes? Ultimately, we have to find these facts and make our own decisions, because the church, as you noted, is not going to diminish faith, even if that faith was originally built upon embellishment.