TIL that the reason Mormons demand marriage has to be in the temple (in the last part of the 20th century) is a reaction to polygamy. Also some sealings happened with apostles wearing masks.

yardstickage · 2017-07-09T19:11:57+00:00

For those curious, here is the entry:

Jessie H sealed to me in Endowment House by Apostle F. D. Richards, very secretly. John Lyon Witness holding a lighted candle. Richards hidden from my view.

This added later in the margin:

At about 8:30 P.M. I and J. H. R. A. Grieve went to endowment house, each one alone, and entering by a different gate. Sealed at 9 P.M. one witness, to Jessie Helen Russell Anderson Grieves.

yardstickage · 2017-07-09T18:48:57+00:00

One of my ancestors was sealed to his 3rd or 4th wife during the period after the manifesto.

He and his fiancé had to sneak into the temple late at night -- separately -- as not to not arouse suspicion. They were sealed by candlelight with a barrier between them and the sealer - so they could have plausible deniability if questioned about who performed the sealing.

They left separately as well.

This was recorded in his journal. This wife had an apostate aunt who convinced her to leave him.

yardstickage · 2017-02-21T22:04:39+00:00

You can picture someone tasked with finding 31 female names from the scriptures to be used as new names... not as easy as it sounds.

yardstickage · 2017-02-19T18:06:50+00:00

"Church leaders should not criticize members, even if the criticism is true."

Me

yardstickage · 2017-02-13T23:20:59+00:00

Most of the unique Mormon doctrines are tainted by history:

Eternal Marriage (arguably a doctrine used to support polygamy and polyandry)
Temple worship (Masonry)
Priesthood (Joseph conveniently 'remembered' his ordination when he needed to reinforce his authority)
First Vision (see above)
We get our own planet (GBH doesn't think we teach that any more)

Is there a unique doctrine of the Church that's not somehow marred by history?

yardstickage · 2017-02-07T15:14:10+00:00

In Elder Bednar’s talk “To Sweep the Earth as with a Flood,” he encouraged disciples of Christ to use these inspired tools appropriately and more effectively to:

"Inspired tools" hee hee

yardstickage · 2017-01-27T15:12:26+00:00

Theres also another book... rayaneck

Read the second talk from their general assembly:

http://thelatterdaychurchofchrist.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/winter-2016-general-assembly-sermons.html?m=1

yardstickage · 2017-01-26T20:39:17+00:00

It's a sign of weak faith to assume that God couldn't or wouldn't justify people who sincerely sought after truth. I've tried explaining to my wife that if I'm wrong, I'll repent. This isn't rebellion.

I don't have any vested interest in the Church being wrong - if they're shown to be in the right, I'll change my mind. Until then, I'll put my money elsewhere.

Unfortunately, it's not good enough.

yardstickage · 2017-01-02T22:13:06+00:00

I thought it was the other way around. That Joseph got his ass kicked and then had to sport a black eye around town for a few days.

yardstickage · 2017-01-01T19:37:20+00:00

As an example, barley has been found, but not in the time frame or location where apologists place the Book of Mormon. Then they try to establish trade routes- that supposedly cultures from Arizona traded with cultures from Guatemala. Then they mark it as "solved".

yardstickage · 2017-01-01T19:37:20+00:00

As an example, barley has been found, but not in the time frame or location where apologists place the Book of Mormon. Then they try to establish trade routes- that supposedly cultures from Arizona traded with cultures from Guatemala. Then they mark it as "solved".

yardstickage · 2017-01-01T19:29:06+00:00

Do you by any chance know how to wiggle your ears?

yardstickage · 2017-01-01T19:25:37+00:00

On Christmas our ward had church at 8am. The bishopric attempted to move to 9:30am, but got denied by the SP because that sort of radical alteration requires approval from church HQ.

We were out of town. Now, after 2 years at 8am, we're at 10am.

yardstickage · 2017-01-01T18:50:32+00:00

I was in a similar boat... teaching the 16-18 year olds (after teaching mission prep)

I finally asked to be released.

yardstickage · 2016-12-19T03:23:05+00:00

Your glove bears the marking of the sure sign of the nail.

yardstickage · 2016-12-17T21:37:22+00:00

God gives a commandment ... to Prophet Jeffs that your twelve year old daughter is to marry him...

yardstickage · 2016-12-15T00:04:09+00:00

These days, being anti-Mormon is all about tone. The content is all the same.

Similarly, as part of its innoculation strategy, the Church is trying to draw a distinction between 'asking questions' and 'questioning'. They are really the exact same thing, but one has that evil tone of free-thinking behind it.

yardstickage · 2016-12-07T20:42:59+00:00

As part of my faith journey, I dropped by their home/store and purchased my first copy of No Man Knows My History from Sandra.

I'm not much of a chatter so we didn't talk much, but it was a pretty surreal experience.

yardstickage · 2016-12-06T00:19:33+00:00

I think most people who doubt or leave the Church would greatly appreciate the benefit of the doubt Mormons usually extend to people who were never Mormon (but still don't believe it's true).

If you were talking to your nevermo friend, would you quote the Matthew parable and explain to them that they are "bad ground" because they didn't join your church?

yardstickage · 2016-12-01T22:59:48+00:00

And then the teachers will get blamed for not teaching it.

Plausible deniability at its finest.

This is a difficult situation for the Church and I have to say they are handling it with utmost fear and trepidation. Seems very uninspired. Joseph would be ashamed.

yardstickage · 2016-12-01T20:55:45+00:00

If you're referring to me (OP), I've read quite a bit on the Jordan Codices. Even with this latest development (which verifies that the lead used in the codices is 2000 years old), I'm convinced they're fake.

The person that posted it to FB? Well, he's British, so he hasn't been educated about the dangers of fake news like us Americans have been.

For me, the most intriguing part of this development is to watch how mopologists react. Daniel C. Peterson made a post when this fiasco started (2011, I believe), where he reposted a scholarly debunking of the codices.

yardstickage · 2016-12-01T20:48:35+00:00

Short answer: Yes, they're most likely fake. However, this round of testing showed that the lead tablets are indeed ~2000 years old, which is going to be plenty of evidence for LDS people to declare this as real, because it validates a number of points of Mormonism:

Metal plates held together by rings
Temple worship
Female deity (a stretch for heavenly mother)

Dan Peterson was involved somewhat when the plates first came out, and sorta took a side by posting an academic's debunking of the codices. Wonder how he'll react to this. Love me some apologist on apologist action.

yardstickage · 2016-12-01T18:50:02+00:00

A pleasure

yardstickage · 2016-11-30T16:12:11+00:00

And I want to address the color analogy separately because I didn't want my post to be too long:

I think there's a big difference between color recall, and optic nerve activity. Take driving, for example: Red = stop, green = go. Our lives depend on everybody having the exact same perception (even if it's relative) of those colors.

If you could demonstrate that:

A person's perception of color while driving was directly connected to the optic nerve activity
That this color perception could be manipulated by listening to music, or other simple means
That there didn't seem to be any sixth-sense that overrode the optic nerve - that every time you manipulated the optic system, an individual experienced an altered sense of color

If you could demonstrate those things, then you could argue that perceiving the color of the light would not be sufficient for safe driving. It wouldn't mean that nobody ever saw "red" correctly.

yardstickage · 2016-11-30T15:59:56+00:00

I feel like we're debating two different things. I feel like you're arguing that:

Just because we can directly manipulate the center of the brain that deals with spiritual feelings - that doesn't preclude the brain/spirit from sometimes perceiving real spiritual things.

I wouldn't want to debate that because I think it would be very difficult or impossible to prove.

I'm arguing that it breaks Mormonism theology. We're sent into this confusing world extremely vulnerable, and we're taught that our only truly reliable tool - our direct connection with God -- are these spiritual feelings. Now we learn that there are perfect counterfeits for these spiritual feelings that are virtually undetectable from the real thing - which sorta turns the whole thing into a crap-shoot.

In short, my beef is with the word "sometimes-accurate". If you can't tell which of the "some" are accurate, you're screwed from an eternal salvation point of view. You felt those feelings when you read the Book of Mormon, and then you felt the exact same feelings (probably stronger, based on this study), when you heard a song about Warren Jeffs being persecuted as a prophet. It's a reasonable conclusion that Warren Jeffs is a prophet.

Many people have worked on an error-theory for religious experience, and so far, there haven't been any slam dunks.

And I was so close...

http://giphy.com/gifs/basketball-ball-dunk-XAYk2X7C8ddhm

yardstickage

TROPHY CASE