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BoM Lesson 33 (Remember)

11 September 2016 / Daniel Midgley / 1 Comment

“A Sure Foundation”

Helaman 1–5

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To help readers build on a solid foundation of science

Reading

Having escaped the book of Alma, we’re spiralling into the book of Helaman. More wars. More armies. So many armies that fought and died without leaving any physical traces.

Helaman 1:14 And it came to pass in the forty and first year of the reign of the judges, that the Lamanites had gathered together an innumerable army of men, and armed them with swords, and with cimeters and with bows, and with arrows, and with head-plates, and with breastplates, and with all manner of shields of every kind.

This wasn’t just an army of hundreds of thousands of men. This army was “innumerable”. Apparently an infinite number of people were armed with swords and shields and armour, and no one can find any traces of them.

Meanwhile — oh, look — another Viking sword just last week.

A group of Icelandic goose hunters got more than they bargained for during a recent outing – they didn’t catch a single bird, but stumbled upon a Viking sword thought to be more than 1,000 years old.

The five men were in Skaftarhreppur in southern Iceland when they found the sword, which they think may have washed up during a recent flood, the Visir news website reports….

The agency’s director, Kristin Huld Sigurdardottir, says only 20 swords of this age have been discovered in Iceland before, making it a significant find. It didn’t take much effort on the hunters’ part, though. “It was just lying there, waiting to be picked up – it was obvious and just lying there on the ground,” one of them, Runar Stanley Sighvatsson, tells Iceland Monitor.

Again, fictional people don’t leave archaeological traces.

Pride

There’s another warning against pride.

Helaman 3:33 And in the fifty and first year of the reign of the judges there was peace also, save it were the pride which began to enter into the church — not into the church of God, but into the hearts of the people who professed to belong to the church of God —
3:34 And they were lifted up in pride, even to the persecution of many of their brethren. Now this was a great evil, which did cause the more humble part of the people to suffer great persecutions, and to wade through much affliction.

Ask: Think of a time when you felt proud. When you felt this way, did you want to persecute anyone?

Probably not, if you felt proud of yourself or of something you did. Nationalism or insecurity have that effect, but not pride.

Pride is forbidden, not because it makes you persecute people, but because in a system where you must always be subordinate, it’s not okay to feel good about yourself or anything you do.

I think the Book of Mormon was written by someone who didn’t understand how feelings work.

Main ideas for this lesson

What is a sure foundation?

Latter-day Saints promote the idea that their ideology is built on a firm foundation. They even sing a rousing hymn called “How Firm a Foundation”. Every kid in Nursery knows that song about the wise man who built his house upon a rock. And there are scriptures like this one:

Helaman 5:12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

And the LDS Gospel Doctrine Manual says this:

After the hymn or song, explain that today’s lesson shows the difference between people who build on weak foundations, such as people who place their trust in wealth or physical strength, and people who build their foundations on “the rock of [their] Redeemer, . . . which is a sure foundation” (Helaman 5:12).

I’m led to think, however, that this emphasis on having a strong foundation is simply wishful thinking, or trying to make it so by repeating it over and over.

If the LDS Church is true, then

it was brought about by a known con-man who had a thing for underage girls
its foundational document is plagued with anachronisms, and has no evidence to support it
it has prophets, seers, and revelators who avoid revealing anything, except when it comes to anti-LGBT policy
it worships a god who could demonstrate his existence unambiguiously but doesn’t, and also worships his son, whose evidentiary basis is flimsy
it requires a small army of apologists and thinkers to make up explanations for why we don’t see what we expect to see
it encourages its members not to engage with people or materials that could disprove its claims
it teaches its members that the strongest evidence for its truthfulness is emotional reasoning, one of the worst kinds of evidence
it exists side-by-side with similar churches, but is much less successful at building and maintaining its population, even though it uses similar methods

Ask: Does this seem like a firm foundation?

Ask: What would be a better foundation to build on?

My answer is science. We have the combined knowledge of millennia, and the methods and techniques to get more. Occasionally we find that the things we’ve learned are wrong or incomplete, but we can discard those things without harming the whole structure, because we understand that they have a human origin. At any given point in time, we have the best repository of knowledge that humanity is capable of, and we’re always updating it.

Read this poem by the Digital Cuttlefish.

Two Books
There was a man who had a book
Of Things Which He Believed;
He followed it religiously—
He would not be deceived.

The story in its pages was
The Truth that he adored—
The world outside its ancient script,
He faithfully ignored.

When someone found a falsehood
Or a small mistake inside it
(Or even some tremendous flaw)
He eagerly denied it.

The Truth was there inside his book
And never found outside
If something contradicted it
Why then, that something lied

And when he met another man
Who had another book,
He fell not to temptation—why,
He didn’t even look.

And, surely, there are other men
With other books in hand
Who walk, with views obstructed,
Here and there across the land

****

There was a man who had a book
(I find this quite exciting)
Who looked upon a tangled bank
And then… he started writing.

He wrote about the things he saw
And what he saw them do
And when he found mistakes he’d made
He wrote about them, too

He shared his book with other men
And women that he met—
They found the catch is bigger, when
You cast a wider net.

They shared their observations
So that everyone could read;
They worked as a community,
The better to succeed.

They found they saw much further,
And discovered so much more
When they stood upon the shoulders
Of the ones who’d gone before

It’s a book that keeps evolving,
Always growing, as we learn.
Many people help to write it:
Would you like to take a turn?

Obsession with secret societies

The Book of Mormon reflects the conditions of its time. At the time, secret societies were all the rage. The Masons, the Druids, and even a group called the Society of Flagellants! And of course, the Illuminati.

By the 1830s, frontier America was reacting with alarm to these secret societies. The Anti-Masonic Party formed in 1828, with a view to stopping these supposedly subversive elements, and combatting the danger they represented.

And predictably, the Book of Mormon laments the secret societies — here, secret combinations — that bring down the Nephites.

Helaman 1:11 And he went unto those that sent him, and they all entered into a covenant, yea, swearing by their everlasting Maker, that they would tell no man that Kishkumen had murdered Pahoran.

Helaman 2:2 And it came to pass that Helaman, who was the son of Helaman, was appointed to fill the judgment-seat, by the voice of the people.
2:3 But behold, Kishkumen, who had murdered Pahoran, did lay wait to destroy Helaman also; and he was upheld by his band, who had entered into a covenant that no one should know his wickedness.
2:4 For there was one Gadianton, who was exceedingly expert in many words, and also in his craft, to carry on the secret work of murder and of robbery; therefore he became the leader of the band of Kishkumen.

Did anyone notice the “flaxen cord”, back in 2 Nephi?

2 Nephi 26:22 And there are also secret combinations, even as in times of old, according to the combinations of the devil, for he is the founder of all these things; yea, the founder of murder, and works of darkness; yea, and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever.

Flaxen cord? That’s a reference to a Masonic symbol known as the “cable tow“.

The Cable Tow is a symbol of the First Degree and represents the candidates bond to his guide. In some esoteric circles it represents the umbilical cord.

The Masonic Library elaborates.

The word tow has another significance, in addition to pulling or dragging, it also means the fiber of flax, or hemp, or jute. A cable might be made of plaited wire, or of metal links, or of manmade fibers, but the combination “cable-tow” which seems to be of purely Masonic usage, implies almost certainly the natural fiber from which the rope is to be made.

In other words, the Book of Mormon perpetuates the anti-Masonic feeling that was current at the time, by comparing one of Freemasonry’s symbols with satanic enslavement.

Remember, Masonry doesn’t go back to Solomon. It’s a recent thing. It goes back no farther than the 1500s. So this really is a tip-off to the Book of Mormon’s recent origins.

What’s really weird (and hypocritical) is how much like a secret society Mormonism became. It had obscure rituals (cribbed from Freemasonry, btw), a tradition of quietly embedding itself in politics, and secret oaths and codewords. They keep their finances pretty secret, too. Check out this post from Redditor curious_mormon for the full story.

Remember

This Book of Mormon reading places a great deal of emphasis on remembering.

Helaman 5:4 And it came to pass that Nephi had become weary because of their iniquity; and he yielded up the judgment-seat, and took it upon him to preach the word of God all the remainder of his days, and his brother Lehi also, all the remainder of his days;
5:5 For they remembered the words which their father Helaman spake unto them. And these are the words which he spake:
5:6 Behold, my sons, I desire that ye should remember to keep the commandments of God; and I would that ye should declare unto the people these words. Behold, I have given unto you the names of our first parents who came out of the land of Jerusalem; and this I have done that when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good.

So does the LDS Gospel Doctrine manual.

In the Book of Mormon there are over 240 instances of the word remember or forms of the word (such as remembered, remembrance, or forget not). Fifteen of these instances are in Helaman 5. What must we remember? (See Helaman 5:9; see also Mosiah 3:17.) Why is it important to remember?

Mormons have the idea that if people leave the church, it’s because they’ve somehow forgotten about how wonderful it is. They’ve simply forgotten about testimony-building experiences.

Take it from Dieter Uchtdorf.

What he’s actually describing is not forgetting. It’s a normal reaction when you stop believing that something’s true, which you’d carefully conned yourself into believing for years. When you can finally see things without the Mormon filter, you sort of shake your head in amazement at all the crazy things you’d believed.

One day recently, a pair of Mormon missionaries came over for dinner. I like to have them over because they’re usually quite nice. Also — let’s face it — I also feel kind of bad for them, because I remember what it was like. And finally, I want them to see that you can leave the church and live a good, ethical life as an unbeliever, and apostasy doesn’t have to spiral into drug abuse and cannibalism. (Those are optional.)

So on this particular night, in our after-dinner discussion, the younger of the two thought he’d explain why I left. I wrote it down afterwards because it was so perfect. He said,

I think what happened is:
you stopped praying
you stopped reading the scriptures
and over the course of time, you stopped going to church
and then you stopped believing it was true.

It was amazing. Four complete misses! I was pleased to let him know that he was quite wrong on every point. If anything, he had it in reverse order in my case.

When you’re going through deconversion, and you recognise that you’ve been utterly, terribly wrong on everything, and you’re wondering what it all means, and one of those things is the loss of your social group and your status in a community and your mental model of the entire universe — not to mention all the time and money you’ve invested — you don’t just drift away. In my case, I prayed harder! I read the scriptures with a new intensity. I went to church for a good solid six months after I no longer believed. (That’s what finally finished my testimony off.)

So when this young elder told me what he thought my reasons were… I was secretly glad. Why glad? Here’s why.

Mormons simply do not understand why people leave, or what deconversion is like. They could ask someone who’s been through it, but they never do. That might open up an unwanted conversation — and besides, they know already! It’s because we forgot.

Except we don’t just forget. I could tell you the details of all my biggest and most convincing spiritual experiences. I remember everything. I just don’t think they mean what I used to think they mean. I’ve reordered my evidentiary model.

But Mormons don’t get this. And because they don’t understand why people leave, they won’t be able to stop it. The die-off will continue. And that makes me very glad, even though I know Mormons won’t be able to help someone who’s hurting. That’s where I come in. And not just me — a whole lot of other ex-Mormons who have formed supportive communities of disbelief.

Sadly, there’s another consequence of Mormons not getting it when it comes to apostasy. They blame themselves for their church’s failures. Here’s a scripture that lets them do that.

Helaman 4:22 And that they had altered and trampled under their feet the laws of Mosiah, or that which the Lord commanded him to give unto the people; and they saw that their laws had become corrupted, and that they had become a wicked people, insomuch that they were wicked even like unto the Lamanites.
4:23 And because of their iniquity the church had begun to dwindle; and they began to disbelieve in the spirit of prophecy and in the spirit of revelation; and the judgments of God did stare them in the face.
4:24 And they saw that they had become weak, like unto their brethren, the Lamanites, and that the Spirit of the Lord did no more preserve them; yea, it had withdrawn from them because the Spirit of the Lord doth not dwell in unholy temples —

That’s right; when you’re bad, you get abandoned by the Holy Spook, your supposed source of spiritual strength. And then the church collapses. But it’s not because of the lack of evidence, the sinister leaders, or the lack of tangible benefit. It’s you.

I really hope that church members today aren’t blaming themselves for the failure of the church and the current on-going final apostasy. But this scripture might have that effect.

Additional lesson ideas

Cement

I always thought cement was an anachronism in the Book of Mormon.

Helaman 3:3 And it came to pass in the forty and sixth, yea, there was much contention and many dissensions; in the which there were an exceedingly great many who departed out of the land of Zarahemla, and went forth unto the land northward to inherit the land.
…
3:7 And there being but little timber upon the face of the land, nevertheless the people who went forth became exceedingly expert in the working of cement; therefore they did build houses of cement, in the which they did dwell.
3:8 And it came to pass that they did multiply and spread, and did go forth from the land southward to the land northward, and did spread insomuch that they began to cover the face of the whole earth, from the sea south to the sea north, from the sea west to the sea east.
3:9 And the people who were in the land northward did dwell in tents, and in houses of cement, and they did suffer whatsoever tree should spring up upon the face of the land that it should grow up, that in time they might have timber to build their houses, yea, their cities, and their temples, and their synagogues, and their sanctuaries, and all manner of their buildings.
3:10 And it came to pass as timber was exceedingly scarce in the land northward, they did send forth much by the way of shipping.
3:11 And thus they did enable the people in the land northward that they might build many cities, both of wood and of cement.
…
3:14 But behold, a hundredth part of the proceedings of this people, yea, the account of the Lamanites and of the Nephites, and their wars, and contentions, and dissensions, and their preaching, and their prophecies, and their shipping and their building of ships, and their building of temples, and of synagogues and their sanctuaries, and their righteousness, and their wickedness, and their murders, and their robbings, and their plundering, and all manner of abominations and whoredoms, cannot be contained in this work.

But it looks like I was wrong. Cement — or something like cement — has been found in Mesoamerica.

They most often utilized limestone, which remained pliable enough to be worked with stone tools while being quarried, and only hardened once when removed from its bed. In addition to the structural use of limestone, much of their mortar consisted of crushed, burnt, and mixed limestone that mimicked the properties of cement and was used just as widely for stucco finishing as it was for mortar.

Not actual houses of cement, which the Book of Mormon says there were apparently so many as to cover “the face of the whole earth, from the sea south to the sea north, from the sea west to the sea east”. Ideally you’d want to find the houses, but we do see something like cement, so the Book of Mormon gets this one on a technicality.

I think this is the real problem with the Book of Mormon. If so many people were building cement buildings, ships, and temples in such abundance, then we should be able to find them. Shoot — we should be able to see them from Google Earth. But we don’t. And instead, by way of defence, apologists say, “Well, something like cement has been found in a few places.”

The other problem is that things that we know existed don’t appear in the Book of Mormon. It would have easy to write,

Behold, they did construct walls hewn of stone with such exactness that a hair would not fit between the stones.

That’s something we do observe, but not in the Book of Mormon.

7-manmade-wonders-sacsayhuaman

If it’s true, it should be obviously more true. But it’s not. That’s God, you know. Always operating on the margins of credibility.

BoM Lesson 15 (King Benjamin 1)

17 April 2016 / Daniel Midgley / 4 Comments

“Eternally Indebted to Your Heavenly Father”

Mosiah 1–3

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To show how the gospel sets up impossible, confusing, and damaging expectations for people

Reading

From all my years of teaching Gospel Doctrine (either here or in church), there’s a principle I’ve learned about prophecy:

It’s crap.

Wait, that wasn’t the principle! The principle is this:

All prophecies either

turn out false (but become plausible if reinterpreted creatively enough)
turn out true, but in ways that anyone could have known at the time
turn out true, because they were written after the thing happened.

All the stuff about Jesus in the Book of Mormon is in the latter category. The Old Testament (contra Jacob) doesn’t mention Jesus at all. It’s so vague about him that the people who knew the scriptures best resisted him the most. But how about the Book of Mormon, which was written after people had heard of Jesus? Suddenly it’s all about teh Jesus! They can’t stop talking about Jesus. How about that?

Mosiah 3:5 For behold, the time cometh, and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay, and shall go forth amongst men, working mighty miracles, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, causing the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear, and curing all manner of diseases.
3:6 And he shall cast out devils, or the evil spirits which dwell in the hearts of the children of men.
3:7 And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people.
3:8 And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and his mother shall be called Mary.

I mean, check that out — the Book of Mormon writers practically had his damn mobile number. They’re calling him by name, they’re calling themselves Christians — and strangely, they’re still living the Law of Moses, so that must have been confusing.

“Why are we sacrificing animals again?”
“Just do it; don’t worry about it.”
“But this won’t matter in a few years.”
“That’s why we’re not writing any details down in the Gold Plates.”

What’s more likely: that Book of Mormon prophets were so amazing that they knew stuff that other Bible prophets didn’t know — or that someone in the 1820s sat down and wrote it?

It’s not just the knowledge of Jesus that marks the Book of Mormon as a 19th century document. It’s the subject matter that the Book of Mormon presents. Check out this odd reference to the status of infants, which preoccupied theologians in the 1800s, and precisely no one in Biblical times:

Mosiah 3:17 And moreover, I say unto you, that there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.
3:18 For behold he judgeth, and his judgment is just; and the infant perisheth not that dieth in his infancy; but men drink damnation to their own souls except they humble themselves and become as little children, and believe that salvation was, and is, and is to come, in and through the atoning blood of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.

Isn’t that kind of a 1830s thing?

When I was at the dear old Brigham Young U, I found that you could read forbidden documents at the library. Well, they weren’t forbidden; you could give your student ID to someone in the Special Documents collection, and while they were sending your details to the Strengthing the Members Committee in Salt Lake, you could read the documents there.

I decided to check out the “Position Papers”, a set of documents generated by the Reorganised Church of JCoLDS when they were making their break from traditional Mormon theology in the 1960s. For some reason, I was interested in Chapter 11, about their reasons from shifting away from the Book of Mormon.

As we examine the Book of Mormon, shorn of any intention solely to amass data in support of preconceived notions about it, we must honestly admit that there arises an awareness of certain problems concerning traditional understandings of the Book. The problems include:
…
3. Its propensity for reflecting in detail the religious concerns of the American frontier. Alexander Campbell in 1832 pointed out that every major theological question of the frontier was covered in the Book of Mormon, including infant baptism, ordination and ministerial authority, the Trinity, regeneration, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, and even the burning questions of Freemasonry, republican government and the rights of man.

It certainly did seem to me as though the Book of Mormon did have a preoccupation with issues as they were in the 1800s. It seems that what they say in General Conference is true: the Book of Mormon is “written for our day” — but this is because it was written in our day.

Main ideas for this lesson

Unprofitable servants

King Benjamin is giving his great address to an improbably large crowd.

Mosiah 2:19 And behold also, if I, whom ye call your king, who has spent his days in your service, and yet has been in the service of God, do merit any thanks from you, O how you ought to thank your heavenly King!
2:20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another —
2:21 I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another — I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.

I’m remembering back to my LDS days, and thinking about all the effort the church took. Three hours every Sunday is just a start. For many, there are extra meetings during the week, including ward and stake leadership meetings and Seminary. Then there’s temple attendance. Oh, and cleaning the buildings.

Not to mention going on a two-year mission, and giving 10% of your income for the whole of your life. There’s more, but it all works toward the same point: The LDS Church has a really high bar to be considered basically active.

But even after all of this, what this scripture tells us is that no matter what you do, you’re still unprofitable.

Ask: How does this make someone feel, if they’re trying to do their best in the church?

It’s such a glaring scripture, and I think it calls for some kind of explanation. What is it doing here? What kind of function does this idea serve?

You could argue that it’s designed to motivate people who aren’t doing all they can. But what about people who are knocking themselves out, and get so little in return?

I think it goes beyond the motivational. I see this as an out-clause. Here’s how:

Religion is a con. It makes phoney promises that fail. And when those promises fail, there has to be a way of getting the mark (the person being conned) from blaming the religion. How to divert their disappointment? By setting up impossible conditions for success.

“Oh, you’re not feeling fulfilled? Bad things happening anyway? Well, have you been you coming to church? You have?

“Have you been praying? Oh.

“How about reading the scriptures? Attending the temple? Having Family Home Evening…?

“How’s your home teaching? Aha… home teaching a little spotty? That was probably it. Bring those stats up, and I’ll bet you’ll be in line for some blessings pret…ty soon.”

It’s a fantastic way of explaining away failures — it’s not the church’s fault; it’s yours, you unprofitable servant, you.

And of course there’s the usual benefit: if the church asks for more, it gets more. And the investment fallacy means that members who have given their all will be less likely to question their belief — you must believe it, or you wouldn’t have given so much, right? And if you walk away, you’ll lose everything you’ve invested!

Mosiah 2:22 And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.
2:23 And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him.
2:24 And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?

Again, the church doesn’t want just some of your time and attention. It claims the right to have it all. Forever and ever.

Mosiah 2:25 And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you.

No matter what you do, you’ll never be worthwhile under this system. You are less than the dust of the earth.

But of course, if you’re running a church, you can’t just heap this kind of abuse on people all the time. That’s why there’s a parallel narrative: I am a child of God. You’re a chosen people, a special generation held in reserve, etc. The church can pull out this story when it needs to, and this makes people feel bonded to the organisation. But if people feel too special, the church can remind them of the “dangers of pride” (which is only really dangerous to the church itself), and it can hit them with the “less than the dust of the earth” story. It can switch between these two stories whenever it needs to.

Seen this way, the church resembles nothing more than an abusive and narcissistic partner, for whom this hot-and-cold tactic is typical (see point 3 on that link). The abuser builds you up if you do what they tell you, but they also remind you that you’ll never be good enough.

Benjamin continues by talking about the “natural man”. Repeat it with me, if you remember it.

Mosiah 3:19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

Ask:

What has the Lord inflicted upon you?
Why does Benjamin think it’s okay for the Lord to “inflict” things upon us?
Why is it important for us to feel helpless like a child in this situation?

Have a read of this commentary from the LDS Lesson Manual:

Elder Bruce R. McConkie said: “After the fall of Adam, man became carnal, sensual, and devilish by nature; he became fallen man. . . . All accountable persons on earth inherit this fallen state, this probationary state, this state in which worldly things seem desirable to the carnal nature. Being in this state, ‘the natural man is an enemy to God,’ until he conforms to the great plan of redemption and is born again to righteousness. (Mosiah 3:19.) Thus all mankind would remain lost and fallen forever were it not for the atonement of our Lord. (Alma 42:4–14.)” (Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed. [1966], 267–68).
• How can we “[put] off the natural man”? (See Mosiah 3:19. Discuss answers as shown below.)
a. Yield to “the enticings of the Holy Spirit.” How does this help us “[put] off the natural man”? (See 2 Nephi 32:5; Mosiah 5:2; 3 Nephi 28:11.)

What Benjamin is telling us is that the way you are is wrong, and if you want to be saved, you have to act other than the way you are.

Now I agree that sometimes, I am a bag of slop. Like everyone, I can gravitate to a level that isn’t the best for me. I eat too many Doritos, I can be self-absorbed, and if I want to be my best self, I have to exert some energy and overcome some of my slouchy bad habits.

But there’s a difference between saying, “Sometimes I’m a bit lazy or uncaring, and I need to work on that,” and saying “The way that I am is essentially broken, and I need someone else to make me whole.” The first one points to, and enables, self-improvement. The second one instills a sense of permanent inferiority that offers the church as a solution. It is not a way to build self-reliant people. It’s a way to build broken people.

Why the Gospel is terrible

Now we’ve seen enough of the gospel’s program to understand why the gospel does not work. Just for a reminder, according to the church’s “plan of salvation”, we are here on earth in a kind of probationary state. Our ability to return to God depends on the choices we make here.

But this plan is stacked against us at every turn.

1. We have been created with an inbuilt tendency to sin.

As King Benjamin says, “the natural man is an enemy to God.” God inexplicably made us want to sin.

But God could have made it so that we wouldn’t want to do anything wrong. This wouldn’t have involved a curtailment of our agency. He had to make us some way or another, and it would have been just as simple to make us in a way that didn’t involve a preoccupation with things he doesn’t like. For example, I have never been curious about alcohol or drugs — not that I think those are wrong anymore, but trying those things out has never been a part of my nature. I still have agency; I’m just not interested in them.

It would have been possible for a super-smart God to think of a way to make humans that aren’t interested in sin, without curtailing their agency. Why didn’t he? Why did he make a decision to stack the deck against us?

2. We can’t trust our own moral compass.

Having given us a tendency to want to sin, God also created us with faulty moral intuition. Not only is the “natural man” an enemy to God, but he tells us that we can’t trust the answers we get from our own moral reasoning.

Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

Let’s think through this, because this one thing unhinges the entire contraption.

My ability to return to God relies on me making good choices. But God gave me a brain that provides faulty moral intuitions. If I can’t trust my own ideas of what’s right and wrong, then I have no way of knowing what “good choices” are.

You could say, “That’s the point. You’re not supposed to trust your own moral instincts. You’re supposed to obey God and ‘yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit.'”

But if I can’t trust my own moral compass, then I can’t even be sure if that’s the right thing to do. If God gives us a faulty ethical lens and says “Go to it”, then the whole thing stops right there. How could I even tell the difference between good and bad choices if I can’t trust my own ethical filter? Unless I have a reliable moral compass, the whole task becomes impossible.

3. Satan

On top of all this, God allows a perfectly evil being to tempt us. If I knew of an evil being, I would keep them far away from my kids, but God’s like “Go for it,” which is another way that he’s a terrible parent. To help us, the Holy Spirit gives us signals that are indistinguishable from emotions, impressions, or dyspepsia. (That’s if we don’t offend him, in which case, he buggers off.)

Even prophets get it wrong in this process, so what chance do the rest of us have?

Ask: Could you convict even the worst criminal under this system?

4. Self-esteem sniping

And after all this — a sinful nature, a broken compass, and access to bad influences — our self-efficacy is constantly being undermined and belittled by the gospel itself. We’re reminded that we’re less than the dust of the earth, that we owe God everything, and that there’s nothing we can do to be considered worthy.

Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone: the gospel is a terrible system. It’s a set up. God could have made it any way he wanted, but he chose to put us in a situation with impossible, contradictory, confusing, and demeaning expectations. This contemptible god belittles us, and expects us to praise him in return.

The appropriate response is the same as it should be for any abuser: we must cut him off entirely, and work within a loving and supportive community to build our own lasting self-respect. Our morality isn’t perfect, but we can work to improve it without the petty sniping of a demanding and jealous father figure.

Additional lesson ideas

Every pore?

Now here’s a linguistic curiosity. When Jesus (allegedly) prayed in Gesthemane,

Luke 22:44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Was there really any blood? The wording is “as it were”, which usually signals a turn of phrase, not a fact.

But fast-forward a couple thousand years, and Mormons will tell you that Jesus bled “from every pore”. This wording appears in our reading.

Mosiah 3:7 And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people.

I seem to remember many church talks where the speaker solemnly asserted that if you were in extreme agony, you might bleed from one pore, but Jesus bled from all of them.

I guess there’s a condition where people bleed from their pores, but I got curious as to whether this might be a linguistic artefact. What I mean is that the wording “he bled from every pore” seems to roll off the tongue very easily. Could it be that it was just a phrase that people were accustomed to saying, and Joseph Smith (or whoever) simply wrote the well-known idiom into his book, which Mormons then took as gospel?

If the phrase “bleed * every pore” were in common usage around Smith’s time, this would explain how it worked it way into the Book of Mormon, and why Mormons now think Jesus had a particularly gory night of it in a garden.

In fact, this is exactly what we see if we look up “bleed * every pore” in Google’s Ngram Viewer.

Follow the link at the bottom to ‘bleed at every pore’ from 1768 – 1832, and you’ll find lots of examples, some of which I’ve copied and pasted here. Note that these examples use the idiom ‘bleed at every pore’ even when no actual bleeding is going on, which confirms that this was an idiom that people were accustomed to using in various situations.

1821: And, when they sicken and die, the hearts of their parents bleed at every pore.

1796: still there are circumstances in his situation wHich cause the heart of humanity to bleed at every pore.

1820: Thus this unhappy nation, by a miserable and mistaken policy, is doomed to bleed at every pore

1812: whether we stand by them, or whether we forsake them, those gallant nations will still continue to bleed at every pore.

1815: without reviving the ferocious and appalling doctrine of constructive treason, which once made England bleed at every pore

And that’s how (I suspect) a common expression worked its way into Mormon doctrine. A metaphorical statement graduated into a literal belief.

This is something of a one-off in my experience. We already know that believers re-interpret literal statements as metaphorical ones when they’re deemed implausible. This is the only case I can think of where a belief went the other way.

EDIT: Redditor Elijah_Unabel made a point that was too good not to share: there simply isn’t enough blood in a human body to bleed from every pore.

Yesterday my young son asked me how many pores are in the human body. I wasn’t sure off-hand, but the most common answers on Google are 2 billion or 3 trillion (although 3 trillion pores seems pretty high given that there are 37.2 trillion cells in the entire body). I asked my son why he was interested, and he referred to Jesus bleeding from every pore. From that aspect, we might just include sweat glands, of which there are about 2 million. My son and I then ran the math and came up with the following.

We can assume there are about 90,000 drops are in a gallon (about 20 drops per ml). At the extreme of 3 trillion pores, this gives us over 33 million gallons of blood. That’s going to be a bit messy. If we go with 2 billion pores, we get about 22,000 gallons, still enough to fill a couple backyard swimming pools.

Finally, if we just count sweat glands, we get 22 gallons. Not nearly as impressive as the numbers above. However, the average person only has about 1.5 gallons of blood, so bleeding out 22 gallons is still a pretty impressive trick.

BoM Lesson 13 (Interminable Olive Allegory)

10 April 2016 / Daniel Midgley / 1 Comment

The Allegory of the Olive Trees

Jacob 5–7

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To show that religious discourse slanders Jewish people and unbelievers alike.

Reading

My relationship with olives is complicated.

The first time I tried olives, it was at a family gathering. All the other kids had stuck pitted olives on all of their fingers. It looked like fun, so I got two handfuls. Then I ate one of the olives. It did not agree with my young taste buds. So now I had olives on all my fingers (but one), and no desire to eat any of them. What to do? Flicking them at family members was, in retrospect, not a great idea, and brought swift remonstration. History does not record what happened to the olives.

I once lived at a place that had an olive tree. It was a fairly spindly affair, but it made olives with annual regularity. I didn’t know what to do with them. I heard that you could pick them and soak them in brine for a long time, and they would become edible. But if even one of the olives had a bad spot, you’d have a whole jar of bad olives. It seemed like an awful lot of work for something that, as I say, you wouldn’t want on your fingers. The boys used them for olive fights. Olives can sting.

Anyway, this one time I got home, and there was a rotund Italian lady up in the tree, picking olives. Wearing an apron, a house dress, the whole bit. I don’t know how she got up there because it really wasn’t a big tree, and it didn’t look like it could support her considerable bulk. She must have been really keen to get at those olives. Apparently she’d asked my housemate if she could harvest them, and my housemate said yes. The same house had a grape arbor, and the grapes were nice sometimes, but mostly the rats would eat them. So I had rats scrambling around in the arbor and old Italian women up in the olive trees. I didn’t know what to do about it all. I mean, the rats you could poison.

I always pick olives off of pizzas.

I was going somewhere with this. Oh, yeah.

I hate olives. Olives are bullshit.

And so is this reading. The centrepiece of this lesson is an allegory by a prophet named (as the LDS manual says) “Zenos, a Hebrew prophet mentioned several times in the Book of Mormon”.

Ask: If you had to make up some kind of name for a fictional prophet, and you weren’t very good at it, doesn’t “Zenos” totally sound like something you would make up? No wonder Joseph Smith eventually grabbed a map in exasperation, and starting pulling names from it. But more on this in another lesson.

Main ideas for this lesson

God grows, scatters Israel

So here’s the allegory. Israel is an olive tree.

Jacob 5:3 For behold, thus saith the Lord, I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive-tree, which a man took and nourished in his vineyard; and it grew, and waxed old, and began to decay.

Can I just stop here and pose a question. This is about olives. But it keeps saying that this takes place in a vineyard.

I’m no viticulturalist, but I had the idea that a vineyard is where you grow grapes, not olives. Isn’t that right? I don’t want to make a big deal out of this if it’s nothing, but I would have said you grow olives in a grove.

“olive grove”: About 618,000 raw Google hits
“olive vineyard”: About 7,520 raw Google hits

I could be wrong, and this usage could have changed from Joseph Smith’s time, but this sounds like a slip-up you’d make if you’d never had anything to do with olives or grapes in your life.

Anyway, the master of the “vineyard” has a severely misbehaving olive tree (symbolic of Israel). By “misbehaving”, I don’t mean that it started growing grapes, although that would be understandable if you’re in a vineyard, FFS. No, this tree is rotting away, symbolic of Jewish people who didn’t install the upgrade to Judaism 2.0: Christianity.

Ask: If you have broken free of religion, would you describe your current state as “decay”?
Why do believers characterise unbelievers in terms of dwindling, perishing, or decaying?

Good thing Jacob didn’t say it wasn’t an orchard; his olive tree would start growing peaches or something.

I clearly need to get over this.

UPDATE: Thanks to redditor LecturesOnDoubt who posted an answer:

Great post although I will give the answer I always heard for the “orchard/vineyard” mix up. The Hebrew word for vineyard (kerem) is the same as the word for orchard. The word karmel means both as well. Hugh Nibley suggested this justifies Joseph’s mishap, which I agree is a clever point. Although I also think it’s just a coincidence. A good answer for one error out of thousands is not only possible, but very probable. Still doesn’t mean it’s true.

That is interesting, and I agree — a clever explanation. Then the problem is this: God is a bad translator who picks the wrong words.

<eyes the clock> I want to get into a discussion of loose v. tight translation, but I think I’m going to have to do that in a future lesson. Coming up soon!

Thanks, LecturesOnDoubt.

Jacob 5:4 And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth, and he saw that his olive-tree began to decay; and he said: I will prune it, and dig about it, and nourish it, that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, and it perish not.
5:5 And it came to pass that he pruned it, and digged about it, and nourished it according to his word.
5:6 And it came to pass that after many days it began to put forth somewhat a little, young and tender branches; but behold, the main top thereof began to perish.
5:7 And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard saw it, and he said unto his servant: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree; wherefore, go and pluck the branches from a wild olive-tree, and bring them hither unto me; and we will pluck off those main branches which are beginning to wither away, and we will cast them into the fire that they may be burned.
5:8 And behold, saith the Lord of the vineyard, I take away many of these young and tender branches, and I will graft them whithersoever I will; and it mattereth not that if it so be that the root of this tree will perish, I may preserve the fruit thereof unto myself; wherefore, I will take these young and tender branches, and I will graft them whithersoever I will.

Summary: The man with the olive vineyard doesn’t like the fact that his olives don’t believe in him, so he plans to burn the bad branches, and bring in other branches instead. Much digging, dunging, and cumbering ensues.

Stage 1: The olive tree (Israel) is decaying, so the Vineyard Master scatters its branches everywhere (which as we know, is the best way to fix a sick tree). This is a metaphor for how the Jewish people were driven and scattered for centuries. The Master also grafts in wild olive branches (lets Gentiles join the church).

Stage 2: Results are mixed. The tree is doing well, but some of the remote branches are not.

Stage 3: Now every tree is doing terribly. The fruit is still corrupt, and God is going to burn the whole plantation down and give it up as a bad job.

Jacob 5:49 And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said unto the servant: Let us go to and hew down the trees of the vineyard and cast them into the fire, that they shall not cumber the ground of my vineyard, for I have done all. What could I have done more for my vineyard?
5:50 But, behold, the servant said unto the Lord of the vineyard: Spare it a little longer.
5:51 And the Lord said: Yea, I will spare it a little longer, for it grieveth me that I should lose the trees of my vineyard.

According to the LDS lesson manual,

What do the many kinds of corrupt fruit symbolize? (Universal apostasy.)

Let’s make a note of that.

Stage 4: Finally, many verses later, the master of the vineyard manages to get some decent olives — like he had at the beginning of the story.

Jacob 5:75 And it came to pass that when the Lord of the vineyard saw that his fruit was good, and that his vineyard was no more corrupt, he called up his servants, and said unto them: Behold, for this last time have we nourished my vineyard; and thou beholdest that I have done according to my will; and I have preserved the natural fruit, that it is good, even like as it was in the beginning. And blessed art thou; for because ye have been diligent in laboring with me in my vineyard, and have kept my commandments, and have brought unto me again the natural fruit, that my vineyard is no more corrupted, and the bad is cast away, behold ye shall have joy with me because of the fruit of my vineyard.

Let’s say this allegory is all true, and this is God’s big chance to get his message out there, and establish his church for the salvation of all humankind. So he starts with a group of chosen people (who need to kill everyone else in their area), but he explains his plan to them so poorly that they completely fail to recognise Part Two of the plan when it comes along, in the form of Jesus.

Jesus, for his part, appears to a small group of humans, but pretty much allows them to write down whatever they want about him decades later, contradictions and all. He never says, “Mark, Luke, write this down, because I need you to get this absolutely right.”

Then, hundreds of years later, God allows his organisation to fall into ruin and apostasy. He restores it through a tiny idiosyncratic organisation headed by a pedophile with a criminal record. This organisation forms a tiny — and currently shrinking — percentage of the population.

What does it say about God that he has to go through all this rigamarole for so little good, and can’t seem to think of a way to overcome his own problems in a way that doesn’t involve the loss of generations of people?

Ask: What can we take from Zenos’s allegory?

If you are a Mormon, you must believe that the Jewish diaspora, including the persecutions endured by the Jewish people

are ordained by the Abrahamic god, and are therefore just
happened because the Jewish people didn’t believe in Jesus

which is especially unjust when the scriptural accounts for Jesus’ actions are ambiguous and contradictory, and the evidence for Jesus’ divinity is non-existent.

I want to thank redditor scrotumbrau for putting this so clearly:

As a parent, one of the most immoral acts I can think of is saving one child over another based on their obedience to me.

Threatens unbelievers

Jacob isn’t done. He continues his old-school threats against unbelievers.

Jacob 6:7 For behold, after ye have been nourished by the good word of God all the day long, will ye bring forth evil fruit, that ye must be hewn down and cast into the fire?

Jacob 6:10 And according to the power of justice, for justice cannot be denied, ye must go away into that lake of fire and brimstone, whose flames are unquenchable, and whose smoke ascendeth up forever and ever, which lake of fire and brimstone is endless torment.

Ask: Is it just for someone to be tormented/punished/isolated for eternity, for sins of finite duration?

My response to people like Jacob is: I don’t like being threatened.

And their answer is always the same: I’m not threatening you; I’m just telling you what my invisible friend is going to do to you if you don’t admit I’m right and worship him.

Sherem

One of the evidences that the Book of Mormon is a recent — not an ancient — document is its views on atheists.

You never see any atheist characters in the Bible. Back then, they were kind of hard to find. Yet in the Book of Mormon, we have three atheists/agnostics. It’s as though when the book was being written, people were starting to take a skeptical view of religious horse crap. And so whoever wrote the Book of Mormon felt the need to address this by staging confrontations with them. But the BoM doesn’t do this honestly. It turns its atheist characters into straw men — either stupid or dishonest — who don’t say the things that atheists say,and who are pretty much unlike actual atheists. And then it gets God to end the argument by doing violence to them, which is also something that never happens in real life.

We’re going to take a look at the debating tactics encouraged by the Book of Mormon.

Jacob 7:1 And now it came to pass after some years had passed away, there came a man among the people of Nephi, whose name was Sherem.

This seems odd. A guy just appears out of nowhere? This is only one generation removed from Nephi, but Jacob doesn’t mention where Sherem comes from, or who he’s related to. Wouldn’t everybody in the group still be known to everyone? Why doesn’t anyone say, “Hey, aren’t you Joseph’s kid?”

Apologists cover this by surmising that Lehi’s family quickly ran into other people on the American continent — Jaredite or otherwise — and joined up with them. But no Book-of-Mormon writer ever mentions the existence of other people. It would have been simple for Jacob to have written one verse, saying, “And it came to pass that we did discover an exceeding multitude of people, and we did unite ourselves unto them.” One verse! That’s all it would have taken. But this never happens.

Jacob 7:2 And it came to pass that he began to preach among the people, and to declare unto them that there should be no Christ. And he preached many things which were flattering unto the people; and this he did that he might overthrow the doctrine of Christ.
7:3 And he labored diligently that he might lead away the hearts of the people, insomuch that he did lead away many hearts; and he knowing that I, Jacob, had faith in Christ who should come, he sought much opportunity that he might come unto me.

Hey, that’s great — he’s engaging with someone who disagrees with him. That’s a good thing to do.

Jacob 7:4 And he was learned, that he had a perfect knowledge of the language of the people; wherefore, he could use much flattery, and much power of speech, according to the power of the devil.

Ask: In what way does the LDS Church flatter people, or appeal to their sense of importance?

Have you ever heard any of the following?

You have been held in reserve as a chosen generation
The creator of the universe knows your name
You are a child of God
You can become a god and have your own planet(s)
The work and the glory of God is to bring to pass your own personal immortality and eternal life
Your moral system was given to you by the creator of the universe

The entire “plan of salvation” is one gigantic ego stroke.

So much so, that they have to bring you down by telling you you’re less than the dust of the earth. But more on that later.

Jacob 7:5 And he had hope to shake me from the faith, notwithstanding the many revelations and the many things which I had seen concerning these things; for I truly had seen angels, and they had ministered unto me. And also, I had heard the voice of the Lord speaking unto me in very word, from time to time; wherefore, I could not be shaken.

Oh, good for him.

Isn’t it funny how angels only appear to people who already believe in them? You know, if angels were appearing to people — even disbelievers — routinely, it would shake up this whole atheist thing, and make it a lot less plausible. I’m just saying.

Jacob 7:6 And it came to pass that he came unto me, and on this wise did he speak unto me, saying: Brother Jacob, I have sought much opportunity that I might speak unto you; for I have heard and also know that thou goest about much, preaching that which ye call the gospel, or the doctrine of Christ.
7:7 And ye have led away much of this people that they pervert the right way of God, and keep not the law of Moses which is the right way; and convert the law of Moses into the worship of a being which ye say shall come many hundred years hence. And now behold, I, Sherem, declare unto you that this is blasphemy; for no man knoweth of such things; for he cannot tell of things to come. And after this manner did Sherem contend against me.

It’s hard to know what’s going to happen. As Niels Bohr said,

But I do know a good way to predict the future: use the scientific method. By observing what’s happened in the past, we can make testable hypotheses that do predict what’s going to happen in the future.

Jacob 7:8 But behold, the Lord God poured in his Spirit into my soul, insomuch that I did confound him in all his words.

Care to elaborate?

Jacob: “I totally put him in his place with all my great arguments. Yep. Shut him down, I can tell you.”

It’s like that scene in a movie where someone gives a great speech, but the script writers don’t actually write the speech; they just do a montage of the audience nodding thoughtfully.

If Jacob really burned Sherem with so many zingers, why didn’t he write them down? I would have! In fact, I already do that in Facebook posts, and then I read them all to my wife!

Come on, Jacob, you owe us something.

Jacob 7:9 And I said unto him: Deniest thou the Christ who shall come? And he said: If there should be a Christ, I would not deny him; but I know that there is no Christ, neither has been, nor ever will be.

This is an oversimplification; I think most atheists today wouldn’t say they could know that.

Jacob 7:10 And I said unto him: Believest thou the scriptures? And he said, Yea.
7:11 And I said unto him: Then ye do not understand them; for they truly testify of Christ. Behold, I say unto you that none of the prophets have written, nor prophesied, save they have spoken concerning this Christ.

This is revisionism. Certainly Christians have been good at plowing through the Old Testament looking for anything that might possibly apply to Jesus, but this could be done retroactively for Elvis (Presley or Costello, take your pick).

If you disagree, consider that a guy in Canada thinks that Morrissey foretold the death of Princess Diana, through song lyrics. He’s written pages and pages of analysis. I’m not kidding.

When you have a text in front of you, it’s easy to draw imaginary connections that match nothing but what’s in your head.

Jacob 7:12 And this is not all — it has been made manifest unto me, for I have heard and seen; and it also has been made manifest unto me by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, I know if there should be no atonement made all mankind must be lost.

And here, Jacob falls back on testimony. Sherem should believe it’s true because the Holy Ghost told Jacob. Sorry, Jacob, but your special feels are not publicly verifiable evidence. Bearing testimony is a tactic for shutting down the conversation. Can’t argue with that, as they say.

Jacob 7:13 And it came to pass that he said unto me: Show me a sign by this power of the Holy Ghost, in the which ye know so much.

Okay, so now Sherem has touched the third rail. He’s asked Jacob for evidence for his claims.

Apparently you are never supposed to do this, even though this is how we establish facts in literally every other area of epistemology.

tumblr_kttrhgPRzK1qzxzwwo1_400-2

So then God puts the Big Hurt on Sherem. Seem like a bit of overkill, doesn’t it? Really, all that was needed was some kind of evidence, or a convincing explanation. Not to kill him, which after all is not really evidence of anything. People die all the time. Anyway.

Jacob 7:14 And I said unto him: What am I that I should tempt God to show unto thee a sign in the thing which thou knowest to be true? Yet thou wilt deny it, because thou art of the devil. Nevertheless, not my will be done; but if God shall smite thee, let that be a sign unto thee that he has power, both in heaven and in earth; and also, that Christ shall come. And thy will, O Lord, be done, and not mine.
7:15 And it came to pass that when I, Jacob, had spoken these words, the power of the Lord came upon him, insomuch that he fell to the earth. And it came to pass that he was nourished for the space of many days.
7:16 And it came to pass that he said unto the people: Gather together on the morrow, for I shall die; wherefore, I desire to speak unto the people before I shall die.
7:17 And it came to pass that on the morrow the multitude were gathered together; and he spake plainly unto them and denied the things which he had taught them, and confessed the Christ, and the power of the Holy Ghost, and the ministering of angels.
7:18 And he spake plainly unto them, that he had been deceived by the power of the devil. And he spake of hell, and of eternity, and of eternal punishment.
7:19 And he said: I fear lest I have committed the unpardonable sin, for I have lied unto God; for I denied the Christ, and said that I believed the scriptures; and they truly testify of him. And because I have thus lied unto God I greatly fear lest my case shall be awful; but I confess unto God.
7:20 And it came to pass that when he had said these words he could say no more, and he gave up the ghost.

Ever notice how all the really interesting things happened in the distant past? I deny the Christ all the time, and I’m still walking around like God’s imaginary or something.

Ask: What do we learn from the story of Sherem?

1. Believers should just bear their testimonies to critics, and pray for God to strike them down.

and

2. Doubters secretly do know it’s all true, but they’re being deceived by Satan.

Whoops, there’s a flag down on the play.

Screen Shot 2016-04-09 at 4.40.23 PM

Well, I’m going to be sad to see Sherem go, even though he was a bit of a Judaism apologist. It’s just that the Book of Mormon villains are the most fun. We’ll see the same pattern in our other two villains (Nehor and Korihor): the Book of Mormon writer can’t deal with the arguments of unbelievers honestly; he has to present outrageous caricatures of their views, and subject them to dismal ends.

Additional lesson ideas

Adieu

Jacob signs off with these words:

Jacob 7:27 And I, Jacob, saw that I must soon go down to my grave; wherefore, I said unto my son Enos: Take these plates. And I told him the things which my brother Nephi had commanded me, and he promised obedience unto the commands. And I make an end of my writing upon these plates, which writing has been small; and to the reader I bid farewell, hoping that many of my brethren may read my words. Brethren, adieu.

People have made much of the word adieu here, but is it really a big deal? Yes, the word is French, which didn’t exist in this time period — and all the other words are in English, which also didn’t exist in this time period.

Even though the French word adieu seems odd in this context, I’m putting this one down as “not a big deal”. Although it does mean God’s a bit of a crap translator, along with everything else he’s not great at.

BoM Lesson 12 (Polygamy)

27 March 2016 / Daniel Midgley / Comments Off

“Seek Ye for the Kingdom of God”

Jacob 1–4

LDS manual: here

Reading

At this point in our story, the Nephites are becoming wealthy. And you know what that means: wickedness.

Jacob 2:13 And the hand of providence hath smiled upon you most pleasingly, that you have obtained many riches; and because some of you have obtained more abundantly than that of your brethren ye are lifted up in the pride of your hearts, and wear stiff necks and high heads because of the costliness of your apparel, and persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better than they.

I don’t think that wealth makes a society worse, though I do think that inequality of wealth can bring a whole lot of problems. But why does the church promote this story? It’s pretty baseless; I can’t think of a society that became more wicked as it became more prosperous.

I can think of lots of societies that became more secular and/or atheist as they became more prosperous, though.

The world’s poorest nations are also some of its most religious – but does that mean religion can’t flourish in a prosperous society?

Gregory Paul doesn’t think it can. After constructing a “Successful Societies Scale” that compared 25 socioeconomic indicators against statistics on religious belief and practice in 17 developed nations, the Baltimore-based paleontologist concluded in a 2009 study that “religion is most able to thrive in seriously dysfunctional societies.”
…
“There’s no situation where you have a really highly religious nation that’s highly successful socially.”

Ask: If you served a mission, were your most successful areas the wealthy ones, or the poor ones? Why might that be?

And that’s the rub. The church mistakes “people rejecting it” for “people being wicked”.

Religion doesn’t really have anything to offer someone who’s doing pretty well, but it has a lot to offer someone who’s miserable. So it follows that religions would benefit from increasing the amount of misery as much as possible.

There’s a lot of stories in the Bible of Jesus being generous and prescribing that his followers give up their possessions to the poor, but the Christian right is good about ignoring those verses and digging around for one or two to argue that actually, Jesus was on their side about the importance of starving the poor out. When Republicans were trying to cut the food stamp program and Democrats pointed out how that runs against even the most basic reading of the Christianity they claim to hold so dear, Rep. Stephen Fincher petulantly quoted 2 Thessalonians: “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”

On the other hand, Jacob does have some pretty good ideas about what to do with wealth.

Jacob 2:19 And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good — to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.

Main ideas for this lesson

Polygamy

Polygamy is one of those funny areas for the church. No matter how much time has gone by since the Salt Lake church practiced it, and no matter how remote the issue seems to most Mormons, it’s still the one thing anyone knows about the church. “Oh, wow! Do you have a lot of wives?”

Serves the church right — there’s been so much double-talk surrounding this issue that I hope the church gets saddled with it for the duration of its existence. Mormons steadfastly deny polygamy, but secretly think it’s coming back one day.

Brother Jake explains.

So let’s see what Jacob has to say about it.

Jacob 1:15 And now it came to pass that the people of Nephi, under the reign of the second king, began to grow hard in their hearts, and indulge themselves somewhat in wicked practices, such as like unto David of old desiring many wives and concubines, and also Solomon, his son.

Jacob 2:23 But the word of God burdens me because of your grosser crimes. For behold, thus saith the Lord: This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.
2:24 Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.

Really? The Lord never said anything about David’s and Solomon’s wives and concubines before.

1 Kings 15:5 Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

As far as the Bible was concerned, it was all G, so this is a bit of an innovation.

Jacob 2:27 Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none;
2:28 For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.

Delights in the chastity of women, says nothing about the chastity of men. God’s a huge sexist.

Jacob 2:29 Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.
2:30 For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.

Ask: Under what conditions is polygamy acceptable?
Answer: To raise up seed.

So that means that polygamy was a really good way to increase the population, right?

Oops.

But scientists have now uncovered an odd fact about 19th-century Mormons: the more women in a household, the lower the average birthrate. In other words, the more sister-wives a Mormon woman had, the fewer children she was likely to produce.

“Although it is great in terms of numbers of children for successful males to have harems, the data show that, for every new woman added to a male’s household, the number of children that each wife produced goes down by one,” said biologist Dr Michael Wade, of Indiana University.

Did God not know this?

What about Joseph Smith’s involvement in polygamy? We now know (and the LDS Church has had to admit) that Joseph Smith married up to 40 women, including women who were married to other men at the time.

When I bring this up, Latter-day Saints tell me that these marriages were simply symbolic or “dynastic”.

First up, this is untrue in many cases. While there’s not enough evidence that Smith had sex with all the women he was married to, there are loads of heart-rending accounts confirming it. For example:

Lucy Walker: “I gave myself up as a sacrifice, for it was not a love matter, so to speak, in our affairs, at least on my part it was not”

Helen Kimball: “I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.”

See more in curious_mormon’s amazing post on this.

Second, even if that were true, and Smith had the need to marry all those women for some symbolic reason, doesn’t the Book of Mormon say that this is an abomination, unless it’s for “raising seed”?

Dark skin

Jacob 3:8 O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.
3:9 Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember your own filthiness, and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers.

Ask: Is it acceptable to consider skin colour a mark of sin, even as a metaphor?

Hell

Jacob 3:11 O my brethren, hearken unto my words; arouse the faculties of your souls; shake yourselves that ye may awake from the slumber of death; and loose yourselves from the pains of hell that ye may not become angels to the devil, to be cast into that lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death.

I’m putting Jacob down as a believer in literal hell with fire and ouches.

Side note: I did a radio interview with a priest recently (cool guy, BTW), and he wasn’t a believer in hell. All metaphorical, he said. How about that.

The problem there is that, if you were looking for evidence in the Bible either way, you’d find six or eight scriptures where Jesus says Hell is a place of torture with fire, and he says it with a totally straight face. But you’d find exactly zero scriptures where Hell isn’t described that way. Jesus never says, “I was just kidding about the fire. It’s totes metaphorical.” So I think this priest has rather an uphill battle trying to make that case.

The Book of Mormon partakes in that tradition, while modern Mormonism does not.

Numerous

Jacob 3:13 And a hundredth part of the proceedings of this people, which now began to be numerous, cannot be written upon these plates; but many of their proceedings are written upon the larger plates, and their wars, and their contentions, and the reigns of their kings.

They “began to be numerous”. That’s an understatement.

One of the big problems with the Book of Mormon narrative is the improbably explosive population growth. To go from a group of perhaps 30 in Nephi’s day to the (perhaps) hundreds of thousands or millions in 600 years requires a heretofore-unheard-of level of fecundity, or some pretty creative explanations. We’ll consider this in a later lesson, but let’s just bookmark that for now.

Did Nephites keep the Jewish laws?

Jacob 4:3 Now in this thing we do rejoice; and we labor diligently to engraven these words upon plates, hoping that our beloved brethren and our children will receive them with thankful hearts, and look upon them that they may learn with joy and not with sorrow, neither with contempt, concerning their first parents.
4:4 For, for this intent have we written these things, that they may know that we knew of Christ, and we had a hope of his glory many hundred years before his coming; and not only we ourselves had a hope of his glory, but also all the holy prophets which were before us.
4:5 Behold, they believed in Christ and worshiped the Father in his name, and also we worship the Father in his name. And for this intent we keep the law of Moses, it pointing our souls to him; and for this cause it is sanctified unto us for righteousness, even as it was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which is a similitude of God and his Only Begotten Son.

A puzzling thing about the Book of Mormon is that the Nephites were supposed to have “kept the law of Moses” with all its ceremonies, sacrifices, and ordinances — while never mentioning anything about them. If they were doing all that stuff, they sure were vague about the details. Perhaps Moroni didn’t think those things were important, and filtered them all out. Too bad. It would have been interesting to hear about their spin on Jewish traditions.

If they’d existed, I mean. Which is very unlikely given the lack of any Hebrew writing, Jewish iconography, or anything Hebraic in the ancient American archaeological record.

Additional lesson ideas

Repentance

As Jacob is talking about sex, the LDS lesson manual has some words to say about “immorality”. I hate how they use that term to apply almost exclusively to sex, which of itself is not moral or immoral (although the motivations of those who engage in it can be), while ignoring all kinds of immorality that the church engages in (like lying to people, concealing facts, wielding authority over people, and so on). But here it is.

• What must a person do to be forgiven of immorality?
President Ezra Taft Benson suggested five steps to be forgiven of unchastity (“The Law of Chastity,” in Brigham Young University 1987–88 Devotional and Fireside Speeches [1988], 53–54). Discuss these steps with class members:
“1. Flee immediately from any situation you are in that is either causing you to sin or that may cause you to sin.”
“2. Plead with the Lord for the power to overcome.”
“3. Let your priesthood leaders help you resolve the transgression and come back into full fellowship with the Lord.”
“4. Drink from the divine fountain [the scriptures and words of the prophets] and fill your lives with positive sources of power.”
“5. Remember that through proper repentance you can become clean again.”

I just want to take a second and reiterate something I said in a previous lesson. There’s something extremely inappropriate that Mormons do. Because they’re a religion, they fill each other up with sexual guilt. That’s more or less expected, and sadly it wrecks people’s lives. But even worse, parents allow their children to undergo closed-door interviews with adult men. In these meetings, the young people are encouraged to disclose details of their sexual experiences — including masturbation, sex, and everything in between — without parents present.

From a article in The Exponent:

In my LDS upbringing in Utah, these “chastity interviews.” as they were called by my bishopric, were conducted every six months between the ages of 12 and 18. I and my fellow youth were interviewed by the bishop or one of his counselors about our adherence to the law of chastity. The leader may feel inclined to define chastity further in these interviews and question the youth about genital exploration or self-arousal and romantic and sexual practices with others. This created a norm beginning in the sixth grade for children to talk to untrained older men about sexual practices, a type of behavior that is grooming the child for abuse.

This predatory grooming behavior of interviewing children about sex behind closed doors is alarming. Minors (age 18 and under in Utah) cannot legally consent to sex. Because all sexual relations under the age of 18 are defined as non-consensual under the law, chastity interviews are completely inappropriate screenings of the sexual experiences of children. They are also ineffective for detecting any sexual abuse experienced by the child interviewed as they violate protocol for how trained professionals interview children where suspected abuse has taken place, including side-by-side positioning and placing the child in a higher position than the interviewer. The clergy member, attired in business uniform and sitting across a desk creates a physical position of power, which can convey a feeling of shame to the interviewee, even one who has very little sexual experience to discuss with this lay leader.

If we are serious about protecting children from abuse, we must stop all private interviews of minors by lay clergy behind closed doors. As members, we must demand that the Church stop interviewing children about their inherently non-consensual sexual experiences and mandating repentance.

Indeed. Bad enough that they think they have a right to pry into the sexual behaviour of other adults, but to do this to kids is unconscionable.

Ask: Why does the church conduct interviews of this nature?

I think it’s to facilitate intrusion. If you want an animal or a pet to be compliant and easy to handle, you have to handle them a lot when their young. Make them think that this kind of intrusion into their private business is normal. Then for the rest of their lives, they won’t mind any other kinds of intrusion. Having given them the right to know about your sexual self — that innermost part of you — what other information would you deny them?

This is in part why Mormons have a really terrible sense of boundaries. It makes Mormonism absolutely toxic, as religions go.

If you agree that this practice should be stopped, refuse to let your children take part in these interviews unless you’re present. Join (or revitalise) a Facebook group. Say “no more”.

Gospel Doctrine for the Godless

An ex-Mormon take on LDS Sunday School lessons

Category: improbable population increase

BoM Lesson 33 (Remember)

“A Sure Foundation”

Helaman 1–5

Purpose

Reading

Pride

Main ideas for this lesson

What is a sure foundation?

Obsession with secret societies

Remember

Additional lesson ideas

Cement

BoM Lesson 15 (King Benjamin 1)

“Eternally Indebted to Your Heavenly Father”

Mosiah 1–3

Purpose

Reading

Main ideas for this lesson

Unprofitable servants

Why the Gospel is terrible

1. We have been created with an inbuilt tendency to sin.

2. We can’t trust our own moral compass.

3. Satan

4. Self-esteem sniping

Additional lesson ideas

Every pore?

BoM Lesson 13 (Interminable Olive Allegory)

The Allegory of the Olive Trees

Jacob 5–7

Purpose

Reading

Main ideas for this lesson

God grows, scatters Israel

Threatens unbelievers

Sherem

Additional lesson ideas

Adieu

BoM Lesson 12 (Polygamy)

“Seek Ye for the Kingdom of God”

Jacob 1–4

Reading

Main ideas for this lesson

Polygamy

Dark skin

Hell

Numerous

Did Nephites keep the Jewish laws?

Additional lesson ideas

Repentance

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