oh Jesus you haven’t changed a bit – Gospel Doctrine for the Godless

Category: oh Jesus you haven’t changed a bit

BoM Lesson 20 (Alma the Younger)

5 June 2016 / Daniel Midgley / Comments Off

“My Soul Is Pained No More”

Mosiah 25–28; Alma 36

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To encourage separation of church and state, and to point out how, for religious people, misplaced concern bleeds over into contempt.

Reading

The story of this reading is the story of conflict between believers and unbelievers. How can we live peacefully among people with whom we have religious disagreements?

This has been on my mind lately, because I’m about to go on a big family visit, and just about all the rest of my family is still in the church. What to do?

My answer: Go, and have a great time, because that’s what we always do! Lucky for me, my family members aren’t a bunch of jerks. And I don’t mention the church unless someone asks. (Which some do.) Basically, it’s going to be AvoidFest 2016. That’s how we work it out, and yeah, there’s some distance, but at least we have some fun getting together, eating food, meeting young grand-nieces and -nephews, and never mentioning the church at all ever.

Main points of this lesson

How the Book of Mormon recommends dealing with non-believers

How does the Book of Mormon handle this? Let’s drop in on the Nephites, who are all one big group now. Mosiah’s reading them the records of Zeniff.

Mosiah 25:7 And now, when Mosiah had made an end of reading the records, his people who tarried in the land were struck with wonder and amazement.
25:8 For they knew not what to think; for when they beheld those that had been delivered out of bondage they were filled with exceedingly great joy.
25:9 And again, when they thought of their brethren who had been slain by the Lamanites they were filled with sorrow, and even shed many tears of sorrow.
25:10 And again, when they thought of the immediate goodness of God, and his power in delivering Alma and his brethren out of the hands of the Lamanites and of bondage, they did raise their voices and give thanks to God.

You’ll have to give them a minute here, people! It’s all a bit much.

Mosiah 25:11 And again, when they thought upon the Lamanites, who were their brethren, of their sinful and polluted state, they were filled with pain and anguish for the welfare of their souls.

Okay, well, now we have a problem. If my family decided to wail and moan over my “sinful and polluted state”, I’d tell them to get the hell over themselves and mind their own damn business (sorry for swears), because I’m actually doing quite well. I think everyone would be a lot better off if they could just chill the darn heck out over other people’s sins.

In the modern church, this spills over into a fear of contamination. When it comes to the truth about the church’s history, the church uses a disease and contagion metaphor to instill fear of outside information in its members. From the awful Boyd K. Packer:

“That historian or scholar who delights in pointing out the weaknesses and frailties of present or past leaders destroys faith. A destroyer of faith – particularly one within the Church, and more particularly one who is employed specifically to build faith – places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master, and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities… Do not spread disease germs!” (Boyd K. Packer, 1981, BYU Studies, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 259-271)

As the story continues, we find that there are some people among the Nephites who have the good sense not to believe the prevailing religious nonsense of their time.

Ask: How does the Book of Mormon depict non-believers?

Mosiah 26:1 Now it came to pass that there were many of the rising generation that could not understand the words of king Benjamin, being little children at the time he spake unto his people; and they did not believe the tradition of their fathers.
26:2 They did not believe what had been said concerning the resurrection of the dead, neither did they believe concerning the coming of Christ.
26:3 And now because of their unbelief they could not understand the word of God; and their hearts were hardened.
26:4 And they would not be baptized; neither would they join the church. And they were a separate people as to their faith, and remained so ever after, even in their carnal and sinful state; for they would not call upon the Lord their God.

Answers: Hard-hearted, carnal, sinful. They “can’t understand the gospel”.

Ask: Have you been described this way by believers?

Ask: What could be the church’s purpose in slandering non-believers in this way?

Answers:

To instill a fear of non-believers in the membership
To down-weight non-members as a source of information
To poison the well

Note that the LDS Gospel Doctrine manual grimly asserts:

Many Church members are led into sin by unbelievers.

Well, many church non-members are led into stupidity by church members!

It should be pointed out, as well, that “wanting to sin” might be a perfectly good reason for leaving the church.

As if all of this weren’t bad enough, the non-believers are hauled up before the priests and admonished for “sins” and “iniquities”.

Mosiah 26:5 And now in the reign of Mosiah they were not half so numerous as the people of God; but because of the dissensions among the brethren they became more numerous.
26:6 For it came to pass that they did deceive many with their flattering words, who were in the church, and did cause them to commit many sins; therefore it became expedient that those who committed sin, that were in the church, should be admonished by the church.
26:7 And it came to pass that they were brought before the priests, and delivered up unto the priests by the teachers; and the priests brought them before Alma, who was the high priest.
26:8 Now king Mosiah had given Alma the authority over the church.
26:9 And it came to pass that Alma did not know concerning them; but there were many witnesses against them; yea, the people stood and testified of their iniquity in abundance.

Imagine that you’re at home trying to get some iniquity done, and someone drags you from your place and throws you into a boring religious meeting to account for your actions! There, people accuse you of non-specific crimes of a religious nature.

You’d think this would ring some alarm bells for Alma, who saw Abinadi hauled up before a bunch of priests in similar fashion.

Anyway, Alma takes it to God, and God says, it’s chill: just kick them out of church, and I’ll burn them for eternity later.

Mosiah 26:25 And it shall come to pass that when the second trump shall sound then shall they that never knew me come forth and shall stand before me.
26:26 And then shall they know that I am the Lord their God, that I am their Redeemer; but they would not be redeemed.
26:27 And then I will confess unto them that I never knew them; and they shall depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Laws about religious persecution

King Mosiah lays down some laws preventing persecution.

Mosiah 27:1 And now it came to pass that the persecutions which were inflicted on the church by the unbelievers became so great that the church began to murmur, and complain to their leaders concerning the matter; and they did complain to Alma. And Alma laid the case before their king, Mosiah. And Mosiah consulted with his priests.

Again, note that the unbelievers are charged with some form of non-specific persecution. Probably just existing.

The LDS manual says this:

“Mosiah issues a proclamation forbidding believers and unbelievers from persecuting each other.”

Well, not from the text!

Mosiah 27:2 And it came to pass that king Mosiah sent a proclamation throughout the land round about that there should not any unbeliever persecute any of those who belonged to the church of God.
27:3 And there was a strict command throughout all the churches that there should be no persecutions among them, that there should be an equality among all men;

These verses state that

Unbelievers can’t persecute believers
Believers can’t persecute each other

Guess what’s missing.

Before we leave this section, let me say that I never noticed how puritanical and dictatorial this society is, and I find this astounding. This is not the kind of conduct that any society should aspire to. It’s more a product of Saudi Arabia or Iran. And yet, it’s presented to Mormons as normal.

Destroy the church

The rest of this reading concerns one Alma the Younger, son of Alma, and one of the unbelievers.

Mosiah 27:8 Now the sons of Mosiah were numbered among the unbelievers; and also one of the sons of Alma was numbered among them, he being called Alma, after his father; nevertheless, he became a very wicked and an idolatrous man. And he was a man of many words, and did speak much flattery to the people; therefore he led many of the people to do after the manner of his iniquities.

You know what — I want to hear some of this flattery. I’m trying to imagine how I could flatter people so hard that they’d perform some iniquities.

Mosiah 27:9 And he became a great hinderment to the prosperity of the church of God; stealing away the hearts of the people; causing much dissension among the people; giving a chance for the enemy of God to exercise his power over them.
27:10 And now it came to pass that while he was going about to destroy the church of God, for he did go about secretly with the sons of Mosiah seeking to destroy the church, and to lead astray the people of the Lord, contrary to the commandments of God, or even the king —

Destroy the church? Surely this is a straw man, isn’t it? Apostates don’t want to destroy the church — they’re happy to live and let live, right?

Actually, no. I would dearly love to destroy the church. I want it reduced to atoms. Not through violence or anything like that — I want to destroy it through education.

It may be hard for members to understand why I oppose the LDS Church — and really all forms of religion, superstition, pseudoscience, and unreason. So I’ll tell a story.

One night, I was out in front of a phoney talk-to-the-dead medium event, handing out “Psychic Bingo” cards. (Yes, this is another thing I do.)

And I saw two women, presumably a woman and her daughter. The older one looked at me with a wearily concerned expression, and asked me, “Why do you care?”

I guess she’s tired of skeptics.

I responded, “Because I think people need to have good information when they’re making choices.” That’s true for phoney mystics of any stripe. People deserve informed consent, and that’s not something they get from the LDS Church. Instead, information about the church (the temple, the history, the underwear) is carefully dished out to those who “ought” to have it. When caught doing this, the church dissembles carefully.

But if you really want to know, here’s my top ten list: Why I want to destroy the church.

Because it teaches a false feel-good method for finding out what’s true, which makes it really difficult to find out what really is true using evidence
Because it teaches things that can’t be proven true, or that have already been proven false
Because it teaches a narrow sex-based view of morality which makes people feel ashamed of their bodies and desires
Because it interferes with marriage equality, and it has the blood of LGBT kids on its hands
Because it makes its members look down on those who don’t believe its nonsense
Because it tears families apart, just like Jesus said he would do
Because it whitewashes its history, and turns an adulterous con-man into the second-best thing next to Jesus
Because it charges its members for the pleasure of being lied to, and builds a multi-billion dollar empire with it
Because it absorbs the lives of its members in an endless chain of arbitrary moral commands, ceaseless admin duties, and time-wasting make-work, so they don’t have the time to think
Because it makes people devalue the only life we know we have, in the hopes of a better one later

Those are just the first ten I could think of. It wouldn’t be hard to do a hundred more, depending on how fine-grained I wanted to get. But you get the idea.

Ask: If you want to destroy the church, what are your reasons? Your list is welcome in comments.

Ask: Why might members say that ex-Mormons “can leave the church, but they can’t leave it alone”?
Answer: It’s an attempt to silence ex-members, so that the only people giving information about the church is the church itself.

Ask: Does the church “leave people alone”?
Answer: No. It sends out tens of thousands of missionaries every year to convert people, it indoctrinates children, and it enmeshes itself in legislation — in country after country — to strip LGBT people of the legal right to their marriage relationships.

A lot of people — even ex-Mormons – say that you haven’t really progressed until you can “move past it” and “leave it alone”. Well, I hope I never do. I hope I never get so blasé about human suffering or deception that I could ever just leave the LDS Church alone.

I feel like I’m watching the church collapse in real time, but I won’t be happy until it’s shrunken into a hard conservative rump, and then divested of its membership and converted into The Corporation of Latter-day Real Estate. I won’t be happy until every chapel is a community centre, and every temple is either a library or a bookstore, one of those nice ones where you can sit down and read and have a coffee.

Here are some photos of churches that have been converted to bookstores and libraries. Aren’t they lovely?

Anyway, here’s what happened to Alma the Younger. Hint: It’s a plagiarism of Paul’s Road-to-Damascus story.

Mosiah 27:11 And as I said unto you, as they were going about rebelling against God, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto them; and he descended as it were in a cloud; and he spake as it were with a voice of thunder, which caused the earth to shake upon which they stood;
27:12 And so great was their astonishment, that they fell to the earth, and understood not the words which he spake unto them.
…
27:19 And now the astonishment of Alma was so great that he became dumb, that he could not open his mouth; yea, and he became weak, even that he could not move his hands; therefore he was taken by those that were with him, and carried helpless, even until he was laid before his father.
27:20 And they rehearsed unto his father all that had happened unto them; and his father rejoiced, for he knew that it was the power of God.
…
27:23 And it came to pass after they had fasted and prayed for the space of two days and two nights, the limbs of Alma received their strength, and he stood up and began to speak unto them, bidding them to be of good comfort:
27:24 For, said he, I have repented of my sins, and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit.

From then on, they begin preaching. And why?

Mosiah 28:2 That perhaps they might bring them to the knowledge of the Lord their God, and convince them of the iniquity of their fathers; and that perhaps they might cure them of their hatred towards the Nephites, that they might also be brought to rejoice in the Lord their God, that they might become friendly to one another, and that there should be no more contentions in all the land which the Lord their God had given them.
28:3 Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble.

Again, it’s all very nice of people to be concerned for my welfare. But if you believe that God is going to torture me forever — as the Book of Mormon clearly says — then this is your problem, not mine. And if you’ve decided to worship a being that would do that… then frankly, I’m concerned for you.

Your conclusions make sense in view of your beliefs. But it’s your beliefs that are the problem.

Additional lesson ideas

Chiasmus

Oh boy, chiasmus! When apologists discovered this little angle in the 1970s, they thought they’d hit the freaking jackpot. A heretofore unknown form of Hebraic poetry, but one that appears in the Book of Mormon.

Chiasmus is a fairly simple way of structuring information. You give a bunch of items, and then give them again in reverse order. Isaiah (or “Isaiah”) does this.

And take a look at the elaborate chiasm in Alma 36.

There you have it: Joseph Smith didn’t know about Hebrew poetry, since he was but a simple and uneducated (?) farm boy who didn’t never get no larnin’. But there chiasmus is, in the Book of Mormon. So surely this must be evidence of its Hebraic origins!

Well, not exactly. In the case of Alma 36, you have to ignore an awful lot of text to get the chiasm to work out properly. Check out Earl Wunderli’s critique in Dialogue.

The existence of extended chiasmus in the Book of Mormon seems far from proved by Alma 36. While the inverted parallelism developed by Welch is impressive on first reading, on closer analysis it is Welch’s creativity that is most notable. By following flexible rules, he has fashioned a chiasm by selecting elements from repetitious language, creatively labeling elements, ignoring text, pairing unbalanced elements, and even including asymmetrical elements.

And that’s not taking into account all the real chiasmus that pops up in lots of non-scriptural places.

It appears in Dr Seuss’s classic Green Eggs and Ham (PDF).

It shows up in Ralphie’s letter to Santa, from A Christmas Story.

Would you believe that half-term US governor Sarah Palin has dipped into it on occasion?

Clearly evidence of God’s inspiration!

And more to the point, chiasmus was known and used by authors of Joseph Smith’s time. Here’s an equally elaborate example used in The Late War, a book of history retold in Biblical style, which bears a strong resemblance to the Book of Mormon.

The fact is, chiasmus appears naturally in all kinds of places. It’s not even hard to make a chiastic paragraph. It’s just writing things in one order, and then writing them again in reverse order. In fact, in this very paragraph, I made some chiasmus myself. It’s not rocket science. Chiasmus is a natural way of ordering information, and that’s a fact.

BoM Lesson 18 (Abinadi)

15 May 2016 / Daniel Midgley / 3 Comments

“God Himself . . . Shall Redeem His People”

Mosiah 12–17

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To show that ex-Mormons behave with much greater courage and strength of conviction than LDS leaders.

Reading

At the tail end of our last reading, a character named Abinadi popped up. He was a bit of a scold, but a plucky one. This lesson’s about him.

It seems that King Noah (invariably portrayed as obese) is wicked, and we know he’s wicked because he does the one thing you’re never supposed to do:

Mosiah 11:1 And now it came to pass that Zeniff conferred the kingdom upon Noah, one of his sons; therefore Noah began to reign in his stead; and he did not walk in the ways of his father.
11:2 For behold, he did not keep the commandments of God, but he did walk after the desires of his own heart….

Ooo — bad move! Remember, what you want is either evil or inconsequential because of that whole “natural man” thing.

What else does this wicked king do?

Mosiah 11:2 …And he had many wives and concubines. And he did cause his people to commit sin, and do that which was abominable in the sight of the Lord. Yea, and they did commit whoredoms and all manner of wickedness.

Wow, the Book of Mormon is really anti-polygamy. It’s amazing that early LDS people were able to accommodate both. What else?

Mosiah 11:3 And he laid a tax of one fifth part of all they possessed, a fifth part of their gold and of their silver, and a fifth part of their ziff, and of their copper, and of their brass and their iron; and a fifth part of their fatlings; and also a fifth part of all their grain.

Taxing their ziff? NOW HANG ON

This passage feeds into a lot of anti-taxation sentiment running about in the USA. I’m not a taxation specialist, but it seems to me that 20% is on the low side, as far as things go. It tends to run in the thirties for the USA, and they hardly cover anything.

That’s for individuals. For corporations, the tax rate is effectively zero, even in a socialist country like Australia. And churches? Pffft. They’re tax-exempt, and this is costing all of us.

Bottom line: Churches have a lot of nerve incorporating anti-tax sentiment into their theology.

Mosiah 11:8 And it came to pass that king Noah built many elegant and spacious buildings; and he ornamented them with fine work of wood, and of all manner of precious things, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of brass, and of ziff, and of copper;
11:9 And he also built him a spacious palace, and a throne in the midst thereof, all of which was of fine wood and was ornamented with gold and silver and with precious things.

Buildings and thrones that no one can find.

And we do keep finding artefacts from other civilisations. Here’s a team that found a 9,200 year-old settlement in Sweden. They were able to find fermented fish. Think about that. Archaeologists are able to find 10,000-year-old fish, but they can’t find enormous gold and silver buildings? (To say nothing of the ziff.) A civilisation capable of producing this would have left mountains of evidence, but no one can find anything. And Joseph Smith practically gave them the address of the Guatemalan neighbourhood it all took place in! Once again: fictional people don’t leave traces.

Mosiah 11:20 And it came to pass that there was a man among them whose name was Abinadi; and he went forth among them, and began to prophesy, saying: Behold, thus saith the Lord, and thus hath he commanded me, saying, Go forth, and say unto this people, thus saith the Lord — Wo be unto this people, for I have seen their abominations, and their wickedness, and their whoredoms; and except they repent I will visit them in mine anger.

After talking some trash, Abinadi gets away.

Mosiah 11:26 Now it came to pass that when Abinadi had spoken these words unto them they were wroth with him, and sought to take away his life; but the Lord delivered him out of their hands.

But two years later, he comes back in disguise.

Mosiah 12:1 And it came to pass that after the space of two years that Abinadi came among them in disguise, that they knew him not, and began to prophesy among them, saying: Thus has the Lord commanded me, saying — Abinadi…,

Well, you just blew your cover there, didn’t you? I mean, all you had to do was not say your damn name.

I don’t care how many people have pointed this out — it never gets any less hilarious.

Mosiah 12:1 …go and prophesy unto this my people, for they have hardened their hearts against my words; they have repented not of their evil doings; therefore, I will visit them in my anger, yea, in my fierce anger will I visit them in their iniquities and abominations.
…
12:3 And it shall come to pass that the life of king Noah shall be valued even as a garment in a hot furnace; for he shall know that I am the Lord.
12:4 And it shall come to pass that I will smite this my people with sore afflictions, yea, with famine and with pestilence; and I will cause that they shall howl all the day long.
12:5 Yea, and I will cause that they shall have burdens lashed upon their backs; and they shall be driven before like a dumb ass.

Let’s just take a second and consider that the god of the Book of Mormon will kill people for not doing what he wants. Again, it seems that we have a god who kills people to get his way. Good old Jehovah.

Ask the class:

How does this relate to free agency?
Mormons (and theists) often argue that God can’t prevent people from doing evil things, because that would curtail their agency.
If agency is so important, why does God then kill people for exercising it?
How plausible is God’s punishment for the wicked, in a world where people routinely commit evil acts?

Abinadi is captured and hauled up before the king and his priests. Obviously the first thing they would do is… grill him about Old Testament scriptures!

(Sorry; I didn’t mean to say grill him. Poor choice of words. #toosoon)

Mosiah 12:20 And it came to pass that one of them said unto him: What meaneth the words which are written, and which have been taught by our fathers, saying:
12:21 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings; that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good; that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth;

There follows quite a discussion of feet. But the striking thing is that the discussion centres around a passage from Isaiah 53, which — you guessed it — wouldn’t have been available to the Nephites. It was written by Deutero-Isaiah, some hundred years after Lehi supposedly left Jerusalem.

Sadly, fictional Abinadi is put to death.

Mosiah 17:1 And now it came to pass that when Abinadi had finished these sayings, that the king commanded that the priests should take him and cause that he should be put to death.
17:2 But there was one among them whose name was Alma, he also being a descendant of Nephi. And he was a young man, and he believed the words which Abinadi had spoken, for he knew concerning the iniquity which Abinadi has testified against them; therefore he began to plead with the king that he would not be angry with Abinadi, but suffer that he might depart in peace.
17:4 But he fled from before them and hid himself that they found him not. And he being concealed for many days did write all the words which Abinadi had spoken.
17:5 And it came to pass that the king caused that his guards should surround Abinadi and take him; and they bound him and cast him into prison.
…
17:13 And it came to pass that they took him and bound him, and scourged his skin with faggots, yea, even unto death.
17:14 And now when the flames began to scorch him, he cried unto them, saying:
17:15 Behold, even as ye have done unto me, so shall it come to pass that thy seed shall cause that many shall suffer the pains that I do suffer, even the pains of death by fire; and this because they believe in the salvation of the Lord their God.
…
17:20 And now, when Abinadi had said these words, he fell, having suffered death by fire; yea, having been put to death because he would not deny the commandments of God, having sealed the truth of his words by his death.

We’ll see more about that Alma later.

Just to close out our discussion of Abinadi’s story: people make a big deal out of dying for their beliefs. It’s considered to be some kind of final statement that verifies their view. But I don’t think dying for a belief is worth much if your beliefs are nonsense. To me, that seems more like a fatal case of mental inflexibility. I respect someone who changes their beliefs in the face of evidence a hell of a lot more.

Main ideas for this lesson

Who is the Lord?

When Abinadi escapes the first time, he leaves King Noah with a lingering question.

Mosiah 11:27 Now when king Noah had heard of the words which Abinadi had spoken unto the people, he was also wroth; and he said: Who is Abinadi, that I and my people should be judged of him, or who is the Lord, that shall bring upon my people such great affliction?

That’s supposed to be a horrifying question: “Who is the Lord?” Why would I worship him? What right does he have to tell me how to live?

You’re just not supposed to ask those things. But really, if someone is demanding your worship, then asking who he is is a perfectly reasonable question!

If I came to you and told you that you ought to worship Burunfa, you’d be perfectly within your rights to ask who that is. As it turns out, Burunfa is a god that my six-year-old son invented. He has the form of a dog, and he pooped out the universe. If I told you that this was an insignificant detail, and you should worship him without knowing any of that — well, you might be justified in thinking that I was a bit embarrassed about those details, and I was trying to shut you down.

If I told you that you should worship Jehovah, but I didn’t want you to know that he’s a genocidal sexist homophobe, then I might not like it if you asked to know his true character, but that’s a question you should ask all the same.

Prophets v apostates

There’s something stirring about the story of Abinadi. It’s one man, up against those in power. Like the painting by Arnold Friberg.

abinadibeforekingnoah_1280x1024

It’s a very inspiring scene, even if it is a bit crowded in there. There’s barely any space to put the leopards. No wonder they’re testy.

That’s how we picture prophets. Boldly testifying of the truth.

So why is it that when you take a modern LDS prophet, and you question them, they turn into mice?

Check out the well-known interview with Gordon Hinckley, in which he goes all funny when asked if he’s a prophet.

Q: You are the president, prophet, seer and revelator of the Mormon Church?
A: I am so sustained, yes.

“I am so sustained”?

Why not “Yes”?

Essentially he’s saying, “That’s what they say.” Yes, but what do you say? Now’s your chance to testify of your power. “That is what I am, and the world should be paying attention because I am the Lord’s mouthpiece.” But instead we get this funny little dance.

Hinckley’s not the only one who’s done this. Have a look at this transcript of a 1904 congressional hearing involving the president of the church, Joseph F. Smith.

Mr. TAYLER. What official position do you now hold in the church?
Mr. SMITH. I am now the president of the church.
Mr. TAYLER. Is there any other description of your title than mere president?
Mr. SMITH. No, sir; not that I know of.
Mr. TAYLER. Are you prophet, seer, and revelator?
Mr. SMITH. I am so sustained and upheld by my people.
Mr. TAYLER. Do you get that title by reason of being president or by reason of having been an apostle?
Mr. SMITH. By reason of being president.
Mr. TAYLER. Are not all the apostles also prophets, seers, and revelators?
Mr. SMITH. They are sustained as such at our conferences.
Mr. TAYLER. They all have that title now, have they not?
Mr. SMITH. Well, they are so sustained at the conferences.
Mr. TAYLER. I want to know if they do not have that title now.
Mr. SMITH. I suppose if they are sustained they must have that title.
Mr. TAYLER. Are they sustained as such now?
Mr. SMITH. I have said so twice, sir.
Mr. TAYLER. Who were your predecessors in office as president of the church?
Mr. SMITH. My immediate predecessor was Lorenzo Snow.
Mr. TAYLER. And his predecessor?
Mr. SMITH. Wilford Woodruff.
Mr. TAYLER. And his?
Mr. SMITH. John Taylor.
Mr. TAYLER. Yes; go on back through the line.
Mr. SMITH. Brigham Young.
Mr. TAYLER. Yes.
Mr. SMITH. And Joseph Smith.
Mr. TAYLER. You are possessed of the same powers that they were possessed of?
Mr. SMITH. Yes, I am supposed to be possessed of the same authority that they were.
Mr. TAYLER. You believe yourself to be, do you not?
Mr. SMITH. I think I do believe so.
Mr. TAYLER. I do not know that there is any significance in your use of the word “think,” Mr. Smith, but one hardly thinks that he has a belief. He either knows or does not know that he has a belief.
Mr. SMITH. I think I do.
Mr. TAYLER. According to the doctrine of your church, you have become the successor of your several predecessors as the head of the church?
Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir.
Mr. TAYLER. And are supposed to be endowed with all the powers that they were possessed of?
Mr. SMITH. That is my understanding.

It’s infuriating! You want to grab him by his old-fashioned collar and say “Are you a prophet or aren’t you‽” Why is he playing coy?

See more examples in this astounding thread.

Same deal when Tom Phillips tried to haul Thomas Monson into court for fraud. No way did Monson go to testify on his own behalf. Instead, he was represented by a very un-prophetic legal team (who couldn’t get the name of the church right).

If there’s a model for how modern prophets behave, it’s not Abinadi. Abinadi represented himself in person, took the fight straight to his accusers, and made no apologies for what he was saying.

On the contrary; modern prophets use legal teams and PR flacks, instead of acting on their own behalf. They give comfy speeches in General Conferences for receptive audiences, but when it’s time to answer the tough questions, they hide behind anonymous undated essays. They’ve (allegedly) funded apologetics groups to make up excuses for them. President Newsroom seems to have more power than the Q15 themselves. And all of this architecture is to protect the leadership from having to say anything they can later be pinned down on. It’s all to maintain plausible deniability and to say as little as possible.

You know who speaks out boldly on their own behalf? Apostates.

In the last couple of years, members of the church — including Kate Kelly and John Dehlin (mp3 of John speaking at the Exmormon Foundation)— have been called into excommunication hearings for the sin of making themselves heard. Of all these, the one that seems most like Abinadi is Jeremy Runnels, creator of the CES Letter.

The proceedings of his excommunication hearing are a must read, and Zelph on the Shelf has all the info you need.

Jeremy: Cool, Thank you very much. Um, Okay, Uh, President Ivins can you read the rest of the apostasy definition? Like you read the definition, but there’s more to it.
Ivins: I’d like you to make a statement.
Jeremy: Okay, you’re not going to answer that?
Ivins: No, I’m not.
Jeremy: K, um, my experience with President Ivins unfortunately the past year and a half, is that he has never answered my questions. Not a single question. I’ve asked you three questions over and over and over and over and over and over and over 28 times and a specific question that I asked you is, What errors or mistakes in the CES letter or in the website is incorrect so that I can publically correct it? The second question I asked you is, if there are no errors or mistakes, why am I being punished for speaking and sharing the truth? Now the third question I asked you is, What question am I being punished for? And you have not answered a single one of them. Can I ask you why you are not answering them?
Ivins: You’re gonna make a statement.
Jeremy: So you’re not going to answer any questions this evening.
Ivins: I’m not. No. I’ve stated my evidence, you make a statement.
Jeremy: Okay. So do I have here, would you agree that I
Ivins: You make a statement Jeremy.
Jeremy: Why are you not answering any questions?
Ivins: This is not the time for that.
Jeremy: When is the time?
Ivins: We’re not going to get into a debate. You’re going to make a statement. Period.
Jeremy: I’m just going to make a statement. Why won’t you answer my questions? I’ve asked and they’re very reasonable questions that I’ve asked over and over. Like I don’t know what, if there are errors or mistakes, I want to correct them. I don’t understand why you are spiritually executing me over something, I don’t know what’s wrong. You claim I’m in opposition to the church. The church’s essays are in public opposition to the church. Out of curiosity, by a show of hands, how many of you have read the church’s essays? Nobody here? Okay, um. By the show of hands, how many of you have read the CES letter? Nobody here tonight has read the CES letter? Wow. And by the show of hands, has president Ivins prepared you tonight for this council by reading the CES letter carefully?
Ivins: Jeremy, make a statement.

When I read this, I picture someone fronting up against a bunch of silent priests. And the one in the centre, taking up the spot held by Abinadi, isn’t the stake president. It’s Jeremy.

Apostates act far more like Old Testament prophets than church leaders do. But this is the nature of calcified institutional religion.

Additional lesson ideas

Tense error

If you were sitting in the middle of the 19th century, and you’re telling a big story about the past, you might be expected to make a mistake in tense once in a while — especially if the events you were describing happened before your time, but after the time of your characters.

Jospeh Smith (or whoever) has exactly this problem when writing for Abinadi.

Mosiah 16:6 And now if Christ had not come into the world, speaking of things to come as though they had already come, there could have been no redemption.

Whoops! Nice save there.

Seriously, though, what do you do when you’re talking about a counterfactual hypothetical for something that hasn’t happened yet, but that you’re sure will happen eventually? English isn’t really set up for this. Clearly, this is a linguistic situation crying out for a solution.

Well, as a linguist, I can help. Ladies and gentlemen, the expectant future pluperfect.

And now if Christ will not be to have come into the world

You’re welcome. But the fraudulent prophet stuff — I can’t really help with that.

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 4 (Nephi’s Vision)

24 January 2016 / Daniel Midgley / 1 Comment

“The Things Which I Saw While I Was Carried Away in the Spirit”

1 Nephi 12–14

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To encourage readers to question the morality of the material in the Book of Mormon.

Reading

In our last reading, Nephi saw his father’s vision of the Tree of Life. But would you believe it, Nephi one-ups his father by getting special bonus content! (It’s almost like Nephi was trying to make himself look good in this narrative.)

This director’s-cut version of Nephi’s vision contains prophecies of future events that, by sheer coincidence, had already happened by Joseph Smith’s time. And nothing that happened after. And that’s the big lesson of prophecy:

Prophecies fail
If they succeed, either they were’
- extremely vague, or
- written after the fact.

Not only that, but isn’t it curious that prophecies given by God — a being so trancendental that he’s outside of space and time — reflect in precise detail the kind of knowledge, opinions, and prejudices held by people of the time? We’ll see an example of this in this lesson.

Seed

The Book of Mormon is the story of people who (allegedly) came from the Middle East, started a civilisation, clashed in a series of wars — and left no physical traces.

They didn’t even leave any DNA — Native Americans are the descendents of Asians, and not Middle Easterners.

Mormon apologists surmise that the DNA of Lehi’s family was “swamped”.

But in Nephi’s vision, the angel tells him that his ‘seed’ — his physical progeny — will be numerous.

1 Nephi 12:1 And it came to pass that the angel said unto me: Look, and behold thy seed, and also the seed of thy brethren. And I looked and beheld the land of promise; and I beheld multitudes of people, yea, even as it were in number as many as the sand of the sea.
12:2 And it came to pass that I beheld multitudes gathered together to battle, one against the other; and I beheld wars, and rumors of wars, and great slaughters with the sword among my people.
12:3 And it came to pass that I beheld many generations pass away, after the manner of wars and contentions in the land; and I beheld many cities, yea, even that I did not number them.

So why can’t we find anyone in the Americas with Middle Eastern DNA?

This is a huge issue in Mormonism, and I’m only going to touch lightly on it here. But we’re going to be delving into it more deeply in future lessons.

Dark and filthy vs. white and beautiful

Nephi sees that Laman and Lemuel’s progeny are dark, loathsome, and filthy…

1 Nephi 12:23 And it came to pass that I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations.

whereas white people are beautiful.

1 Nephi 13:15 And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain.

Brian Dalton — aka Mr Deity — rightly calls out Mormonism for this racist doctrine.

In recent years, the LDS Church has tried to tamp down this idea, but they’ll never be able to completely disavow the racism in its foundational document. The idea that dark skin could be a punishment for sin is at the heart of the Book of Mormon. The only way to purge racism from the church is for it to disavow the Book of Mormon completely. And that’s not going to happen.

Main ideas for this lesson

The Great and Abominable Church

Nephi sees something curious — the formation of the G&A.

1 Nephi 13:4 And it came to pass that I saw among the nations of the Gentiles the formation of a great church,
13:5 And the angel said unto me: Behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity.
13:6 And it came to pass that I beheld this great and abominable church; and I saw the devil that he was the founder of it.

Its founder is the devil.

1 Nephi 14:9 And it came to pass that he said unto me: Look, and behold that great and abominable church, which is the mother of abominations, whose founder is the devil.
14:10 And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.

As a Mormon, I tried to make sense of what exactly the G&A was, but I was confused by the hopelessly contradictory descriptions. Was it a specific church? or just some kind of generalised ‘evil church’?

In the early days, Orson Pratt has it all figured out: It’s all of Protestantism and Catholicism.

“The Roman Catholic, Greek, and Protestant church is the great corrupt ecclesiastic power, represented by great Babylon which has made all nations drunk with her wickedness, and she must fall, after she has been warned with the sound of the everlasting gospel. Her overthrow will be by a series of the most terrible judgments which will quickly succeed each other, and sweep over the nations where she has her dominion, and at last she will be utterly burned by fire, for thus hath the Lord spoken. Great, and fearful, and most terrible judgments are decreed upon these corrupt powers, the nations of modern Christendom; for strong is the Lord God who shall execute His fierce wrath upon them, and He will not cease until He has made a full end, and until their names be blotted out from under heaven.”
– Apostle Orson Pratt, Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon, p.84 – p.85

But later, Bruce R. McConkie, the unofficial church doctrinarian gave his view: It’s the Catholic Church.

“It is also to the Book of Mormon to which we turn for the plainest description of the Catholic Church as the great and abominable church. Nephi saw this ‘church which is the most abominable above all other churches’ in vision. He ‘saw the devil that he was the foundation of it’ and also the murders, wealth, harlotry, persecutions, and evil desires that historically have been a part of this satanic organization. (1 Nephi 13:1-10)”
– Mormon Doctrine, p. 130 (1958)

and:

“Harlots. See Church of the Devil, Sex Immorality.
Literally a harlot is a prostitute; figuratively it is any apostate church. Nephi, speaking of harlots in the literal sense and while giving a prophetic description of the Catholic Church, recorded that he ‘saw the devil that he was the foundation of it.‘ … Then speaking of harlots in the figurative sense, he designated the Catholic Church as ‘the mother of harlots’ (1 Nephi 13:34; 14:15-17), a title which means that the protestant churches, the harlot daughters which broke off from the great and abominable church, would themselves be apostate churches.”
– Mormon Doctrine, pp. 314-315 (1958)

Fancy calling some other religion a whore.

McConkie had to walk that back, but when a young Steve Benson asked McConkie about it, he said his statement was right, but unpopular.

I asked McConkie why, in fact, his reference to the Roman Catholic Church as the “Church of the Devil” had been removed from the 2nd edition of his book, Mormon Doctrine.

McConkie insisted to me that it was excised not because it was not doctrinally sound but because it was too difficult for people to accept.

Which brings us up to the present definition of the Church of the Devil: It’s everything

Elder Bruce R. McConkie said, “The titles church of the devil and great and abominable church are used to identify all churches or organizations of what- ever name or nature—whether political, philosophical, educational, economic, social, fraternal, civic, or religious—which are designed to take men on a course that leads away from God and his laws and thus from salvation in the kingdom of God” (Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed. [1966], 137–38).

It’s Protestantism, it’s Catholicism, it’s Communism, it’s secularism — everything that isn’t Mormon is the church of the devil. Which stretches the definition of church, wouldn’t you say? By including everything, Mormons make this scripture meaningless.

The colonization of the Americas

If the last part of this reading is disturbing, this part of the Book of Mormon should have alarm bells ringing for anyone with a social conscience.

1 Nephi 13:10 And it came to pass that I looked and beheld many waters; and they divided the Gentiles from the seed of my brethren.
13:11 And it came to pass that the angel said unto me: Behold the wrath of God is upon the seed of thy brethren.
13:12 And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.

The spirit of God wrought upon Columbus? Let’s see about the kind of people that the Holy Ghost liks to hang out with.

The Oatmeal’s Matthew Inman checks in.

Native Americans have their view:

And here’s the history:

Columbus’ rule in Hispaniola was tyrannical and cruel. Unruly colonists were summarily executed and natives were either sold into slavery or worked to death. The death rate for natives under his rule was 80-90%, punishments including cutting off of hands, nose, tongue and ears. Dismembered bodies were regularly paraded about the colony to deter the rebellious. In 1500 he was sent back to Spain in chains for trial under allegations of genocide and cruelty. He was widely hated by both the natives and the natives, however today he is celebrated.

Columbus was a religious maniac and used to justify a litany of cruel and savage practices. He saw conversion to Christianity as the main purpose for his mission, yet freely denied natives baptism so as to sell them into slavery. Towards the end of his life he wrote the ‘Book of Prophecies’ in which he claimed his own role in the discovery of the new world had bee prophesied by the Bible. He also outlined some events that would occur, such as the whole world being converted to Christianity, the last Crusade to the Holy Land to finally defeat Muslim rule, that King Ferdinand of Spain would become the Last World Emperor. In the end, Columbus was a corrupted, disease-ridden and more than a little deluded.

Mormons think that the Holy Ghost is offended if you say “damn” and “hell”, but Columbus gets a pass.

And h still gets a pass from Mormons. Check out how the Ensign references this Book of Mormon scripture on the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery.

What, then, do we know of the real Columbus? What were his motives in pursuing his world-changing enterprise? Perhaps the greatest motivating feature of his life was his faith. His writings and the records kept by his contemporaries indicate that Columbus had unshakable faith that he was an instrument in God’s hands.

And, indeed, the Book of Mormon affirms that he was.

The erstwhile prophet Gordon Hinckley refers to this scripture as well.

We interpret that to refer to Columbus. It is interesting to note that the Spirit of God wrought upon him. After reading that long biography, a Pulitzer winner of forty years ago, titled Admiral of the Ocean Sea—I have no doubt that Christopher Columbus was a man of faith, as well as a man of indomitable determination.

I recognize that in this anniversary year a host of critics have spoken out against him. I do not dispute that there were others who came to this Western Hemisphere before him. But it was he who in faith lighted a lamp to look for a new way to China and who in the process discovered America. His was an awesome undertaking—to sail west across the unknown seas farther than any before him of his generation. He it was who, in spite of the terror of the unknown and the complaints and near mutiny of his crew, sailed on with frequent prayers to the Almighty for guidance. In his reports to the sovereigns of Spain, Columbus repeatedly asserted that his voyage was for the glory of God and the spread of the Christian faith. Properly do we honor him for his unyielding strength in the face of uncertainty and danger.

Let’s face it: the LDS Church doesn’t hesitate to stand up for one of the worst and most cruel people that Europe has produced.

Revolutionary War

Nephi sees the American Revolutionary War.

1 Nephi 13:16 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles who had gone forth out of captivity did humble themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them.
13:17 And I beheld that their mother Gentiles were gathered together upon the waters, and upon the land also, to battle against them.
13:18 And I beheld that the power of God was with them, and also that the wrath of God was upon all those that were gathered together against them to battle.
13:19 And I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles that had gone out of captivity were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations.

This seems as good a place as any to mention one of the probable sources of inspiration for whoever wrote the Book of Mormon: The Late War.

The Late War is a history of the USA, written in a high-flown scriptural style. (Sound familiar?) It contains — dare I say — a number of 4-grams (4 words in a row) that match the Book of Mormon (though see here for some criticism).

The interesting thing about the Late War is that telling stories in biblical style was a thing. Try reading some, and see if it doesn’t match the Book of Mormon for tone.

Again, notice that Nephi’s prophecy runs right up to Joseph Smith’s time, and stops. It seems prophets can only see the past.

Additional lesson ideas

Apostasy

True to the Faith, a currently used “correlated” booklet, summarizes the Great Apostasy this way:

“After the deaths of the Savior and His Apostles, men corrupted the principles of the gospel and made unauthorized changes in Church organization and priesthood ordinances. Because of this widespread wickedness, the Lord withdrew the authority of the priesthood from the earth. During the Great Apostasy, people were without divine direction from living prophets.

This would be a weird way for a god to do something. After working to build his church, god decided to give a big middle finger to humanity and sit around for a few centuries.

As one redditor put it,

Heavenly Father was apparently content to let generation after generation pass away without access to true knowledge regarding himself or the authority and rituals his alleged children require to return to him. Now he is super concerned with trying to get the word out?

Disbelief is not dwindling.

To finish out this lesson, I’d like to address a theme we’ve seen a few times already, even in the short readings we’ve done. I’d like to point out the word dwindle, and how believers use it to describe the unbelieving.

1 Nephi 4:13 Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.

1 Nephi 12:23 And it came to pass that I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations.

What’s all this about dwindling in unbelief?

I had an LDS friend ask me about this once. She knew I didn’t believe, and she was concerned. After all, if you’ve ben told over and over again that disbelief is a prerequisite to dwindling, you might be scoping out the unbelievers you know for signs of dwindling!

So she asked me hesitantly, “Are you okay? and happy in your life and your beliefs?”

I responded, “Yes. I’m fine.

“I’m living a good, happy, ethical life as an unbeliever.”

It’s true. I’m someone who has left the church, and is doing better than ever. I’m flourishing in unbelief. Sure, I know some people who haven’t done so well, and the church was barely enough to keep them (unhappily) in check. But there’s no reason why a reasonably smart person with an internalised moral code needs a cage.

My poor friend, who’d been conditioned by the church to worry about me. How unnecessary. What a burden for our Mormon friends.

I want to say that we should show our LDS friends how well we’re doing after Mormonism, but that isn’t quite right either. I don’t want to put on a display and become an ad for my ideology — that was for then. Some of us aren’t doing well. And some of us avoid saying so to our LDS friends and family because we don’t want to prove them right. Aha! — we told you you’d dwindle.

What’s the answer?

I think the best thing is to be how you are. If you’re flourishing in unbelief, then it could be instructive for members. And if you’re dwindling, don’t go to great lengths to not show it, and be sure to ask for help from understanding people when needed. All of us can dwindle from time to time, belief or no belief.

NT Lesson 37 (Hebrews)

18 October 2015 / Daniel Midgley / Comments Off

Jesus Christ: “The Author and Finisher of Our Faith”

Hebrews

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To point out the lies and selective omissions of the LDS Church, and to show the danger of faith.

Reading

Today’s lesson comes from the Book of Hebrews, which the LDS lesson manual says was written by Paul…

Point out that Paul’s letter to the Hebrews contains scriptures that could be useful in each of the three situations.
…
Explain that throughout his missionary journeys, Paul sought to convince the members of the Church that they should no longer practice the law of Moses.
…
Paul wrote the epistle to the Hebrews to reemphasize that the law of Moses had been fulfilled in Christ.

… and which everyone else pretty much agrees was written by not-Paul.

The Epistle to the Hebrews of the Christian Bible is one of the New Testament books whose canonicity was disputed. Traditionally, Paul the Apostle was thought to be the author. However, since the third century this has been questioned, and the consensus among most modern scholars is that the author is unknown.

Seriously, no one has believed that Paul wrote the book of Hebrews for about 1700 years. Even at the time of the Bible’s compilation, people were saying, “Hm, this one’s a bit dodgy.” That’s why it’s in the place that it is.

Ask: Why are the Pauline epistles placed in the order that they are?
Answer: The Pauline epistles are arranged, not in chronological order as you’d expect, but in order of length. Except for Hebrews. It was placed last, just in case it wasn’t from Paul.

It’s weird that, in the church’s official materials, the scholarship is so far out of date. This should tell us a couple of things:

Mormons say they care about the Bible, but not enough to actually find out or teach about it
The LDS Church has a very low tolerance for any story but the simple, official story. There’s no room for any nuance or complexity.

The epistle to the Hebrews is one of the less offensive books of the Bible. It’s largely taken up by stories of how wonderful faith is — faith is actually a pernicious form of fact avoidance — and how the new Christian covenant is much better than the old Jewish covenant.

Main ideas for this lesson

Milk before meat

When I was a young missionary, one of my fellow elders told a group of us about a baptism he was participating in. He and the convert were seated in the chapel before the baptism, wearing white. The convert glanced at the missionary’s leg, and noticed the outline of his garment bottom, visible through his semi-transparent white pants. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Oh, just a lining,” replied the missionary. Everyone thought that was pretty funny. No one seemed to ponder the wisdom of withholding the information about garments to someone who, all going well, would find out about them himself within the year.

But that was the way it was as a missionary. We commonly withheld information about the church from investigators if it was uncomfortable or embarrassing. And why wouldn’t we? We had information withheld from us about the temple endowment, about church history, and so on. One of the hallmarks of the LDS Church is its ability to dispense information at the levels that it chooses.

And the justification for withholding this information comes from Hebrews, which is where we find this passage about “milk before meat”.

Hebrews 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
5:13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
5:14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

In the LDS Church, the phrase “milk before meat” is used as a way of justifying information control and incomplete disclosure. This is a form of lying by omission. I suppose that — just as my missionary friend hoped that by the time his convert learned about garments, he’d be too invested to quit — the church is hoping that we won’t mind the deliberate withholding of information.

Of course, in our Internet age of copious information, any organisation that maintains its control by limiting information to its members will die a very messy and public death.

Predictably, LDS leaders tell members to avoid looking at the Internet.

His actual quote:

After a recent medical procedure, my very capable doctors explained what I needed to do to heal properly. But first I had to relearn something about myself I should have known for a long time: as a patient, I’m not very patient.

Consequently I decided to expedite the healing process by undertaking my own Internet search. I suppose I expected to discover truth of which my doctors were unaware or had tried to keep from me.

It took me a little while before I realized the irony of what I was doing. Of course, researching things for ourselves is not a bad idea. But I was disregarding truth I could rely on and instead found myself being drawn to the often-outlandish claims of Internet lore.

This “avoid the Internet” strategy is not unique to Mormons. Here’s a clip of Anthony Morris III, a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

… and be careful on the Internet. We were talking about that this weekend with friends. Oh my word, how many times do we have to tell you, be careful? You know, going here, going there, they’ll suck you in. Some of the stuff, it can seem so innocent. We’re just warning you. That’s all we can do — is admonish. Stick with what we have authorized. You’ll be safe. You wanna go out there? It’s at your spiritual risk.

Here’s an astute comment about this video:

People who are telling the truth don’t have to fear outside information.
But these leaders are doing everything they can to keep followers inside of a bubble.
It’s just rare to hear them admit it so bluntly.

Another small point: Having taught Sunday School lessons over and over, I confess that I began to wonder where the ‘meat’ was. The church curriculum seems to be all milk.

Unpardonable sin

If converts don’t stay in the church because of lack of information, they can always count on threats. Here not-Paul mentions the very vague ‘unpardonable sin’, and ties it pretty unambiguously to apostasy.

He starts with guilt…

Hebrews 6:4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
6:5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
6:6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

… and moves on to fear.

Hebrews 10:26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
10:27 But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
10:28 He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
10:29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
10:30 For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
10:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Ask: What does not-Paul threaten us with if we stop believing?
Answer: Fire and devourment.

This tactic is known as the argumentum ad baculum, or “argument from the cudgel“. The church uses it in a slightly more subtle manner than not-Paul. Here’s a copy of the first letter you get when you try to resign from the church:

This is a threat. The church is threatening you with eternal consequences if you leave. Myself, I do not like being threatened.

One member tried to explain to me (rather unconvincingly) that it wasn’t a threat — it was just a simple statement of a fact… about what his invisible pal was going to do to me if I didn’t get my ass in line. Yeah, no, still a threat.

Faith and evidence

When I ask religious people for evidence of their god’s existence, they sometimes bust out this scripture:

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

…Yeeees, I suppose that scripture has the word ‘evidence’ in it, but this doesn’t mean that faith is a kind of evidence. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Check out this quote from Matt Dillahunty (at 24:17).

“Faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they don’t have a good reason. ‘Cause if you have a good reason, you don’t need faith.”

So faith is the “evidence of things not seen”? Of course! Because once you’ve seen, you’ve got evidence.

It gets even better: check out this list of murders that were made possible by faith. By faith, children were (allegedly) killed…

Hebrews 11:27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.
11:28 Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.

…Egyptians were (allegedly) drowned

11:29 By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned.

…cities slain…

11:30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days.
11:31 By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.
11:32 And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets:
11:33 Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions.

Remember Jephthah? Killed his daughter as a sacrifice to Jehovah / Jesus. You’d think not-Paul would be embarrassed about this, but here he specifically name-checks Jephthah as a righteous man who did mighty deeds by his faith.

All of which should be enough to tell us that faith is a terrible thing. It’s a broken compass that points any which way you want it to. You can believe anything — and perform any atrocity — with faith.

Additional lesson ideas

“Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth”

You might think that, if you do good things, you get good things. But this doesn’t always work out, mostly because God is imaginary. But this explanation isn’t available to not-Paul, so what does he come up with?

Hebrews 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
12:7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

That’s right — God will “chasten” you, because he loves you so much. I suppose it’s a plausible explanation, but it does make God into kind of an abusive psychopath. Ah, well — this is a common theme in our lessons.

Until next week.

NT Lesson 22 (More parables)

13 June 2015 / Daniel Midgley / Comments Off

“Inherit the Kingdom Prepared for You”

Matthew 25

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To encourage readers to develop their gifts of critical thinking, and avoid prejudice.

Reading

The reading this time is from Matthew, and Matthew alone. Usually there are some repeats in the other gospels, but not this time; Matthew’s the only one who records these things. Given Matthew’s propensity to make stuff up, this probably means that it’s a collection of stories that were around at the time, and not anything that Jesus might have said.

This lesson is brought to you by the number 10, because we’re treating these parables in this lesson:

Parable of the ten virgins
Parable of the ten talents
Parable of the sheep and the goats (possibly ten of each)

Main ideas for this lesson

Parable of the ten virgins

This one doesn’t make a lot of sense at first.

Matthew 25:1 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
25:2 And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.
25:3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:
25:4 But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

So what’s this story about? A bunch of slippery virgins? Are they all for the groom?

Not exactly. When you were part of the wedding party, you waited with a torch. If you didn’t have a torch, you might have been a wedding crasher. And those torches needed to be topped up with oil, or else they’d go out.

By the way, if you’re teaching this class in an actual Gospel Doctrine class, you’re meant to bring a container of oil, and when someone gives a suggestion, you’re supposed to add a droplet of oil to the container.

If you are using the jar and the oil or colored water (see the attention activity), explain that the jar represents the lamps in the parable. Put a drop of oil or water into the jar each time a class member suggests what we can do to prepare.

This is meant to teach class members that everything they do contributes only an insignificant amount to the oil level.

Alternatively, you can squirt class members with oil, and tell them it will heal them of their infirmities.

Matthew 25:5 While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
25:6 And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
25:7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.
25:8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.
25:9 But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

I suppose sharing was out of the question.

Matthew 25:10 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.
25:11 Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
25:12 But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.
25:13 Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

While I was on my mission, I had an investigator ask, “Does everyone who gets baptised stay active?” I told him, no, some don’t.

“Well, what percentage stays active?” he asked.

At the time, it seemed to me to run about half and half, so that’s what I said. And for justification, I made a rather deft (I thought at the time) link to the Parable of the Ten Virgins. Five out of the ten were ready, five weren’t; there you go, fifty percent. Isn’t it great how you can find a scriptural justification for a figure you just pulled out of your ass?

What I didn’t know was that the facts were much worse: As mentioned in an earlier lesson, only about a third of Latter-day Saints are active, according to the church’s information expert.

What if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were a congregation of just 100 people? This is what Blaine Maxfield, chief information officer of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and managing director of the church’s IT department, invited attendees of the LDSTech Conference to imagine Thursday morning at the University of Utah.

Other notable statistics included:

35 are adult males

42 are adult females

13 are in Primary

10 are youths

36 attend sacrament meeting on a weekly basis

five can’t read or write

Wait, what?

We’re not supposed to know this, of course. The information was quickly redacted in the Deseret News article, but saved on the Net.

Isn’t this a bit of a giveaway that even members don’t really find meetings worthwhile? Members frequently talk about all the good things the church does for them, but it doesn’t look like it here. If the church really improved people’s lives, you wouldn’t be able to keep people out! Instead, you have to patiently coax them into baptism, and then you have to run around after them to keep them active. If the church were true or practical or useful, it would be more obviously so.

Of course, just like in the parable, the virgins get the blame; they don’t make it because they’re not prepared. But in real life, people don’t keep going to church because it’s a rather tedious and unpleasant waste of time where you’re made to feel bad about yourself. And you’re supporting a hate group that works tirelessly to deny rights to people. Plus the fact that it isn’t actually… you know… true. There are some very good reasons to stop participating in the LDS Church, and they have nothing to do with oil.

Parable of the talents

So, just a bit of context. Jesus is expanding on his earlier parable, where he explains that he gives to give more to people who have done well for themselves — and by the way, if someone doesn’t want him to be king, then he’s going to kill them.

Luke 19:26 For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Jesus hasn’t changed. He’s still the maniac he was in the Old Testament.

Matthew 25:14 For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.
25:15 And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.
25:16 Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents.
25:17 And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two.
25:18 But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.
25:19 After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them.
25:20 And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.
25:21 His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
25:22 He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them.
25:23 His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

Capitalism FTW!

Side note: One of my Russian professors at BYU was making a defence of socialism in class — hypothetical, mind you! — and told us that none of the parables of Jesus ever advanced capitalism. I responded with the Parable of the Ten Talents. He reflected, and retracted the claim. Fun at BYU.

Matthew 25:24 Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed:
25:25 And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.
Maybe he was afraid of getting killed, because he’d heard about the previous version of this parable. Just saying.
25:26 His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:
25:27 Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.
25:28 Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.
25:29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
25:30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The LDS manual has a teaching idea.

Give each class member a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. Ask them to write down one or two of their talents or gifts along with at least one specific thing they will do in the next few weeks to use them in the service of others.

Ask: What will God do to you if you do not increase your talents?
Answer: Cast you into outer darkness, apparently.

Maybe it’s worth asking, though. What talents do you have? Which ones kept you in the church for so long, and which ones got you out? For me, my patience, tolerance for ambiguity, and my sense of social cohesion kept me in for far longer than they should have.

It’s fairly common for ex-Mormons to beat themselves up a bit, post-deconversion. How could I have been fooled for so long? How did I not see the con? Why did I stay in for so long? But we all had our reasons, and in some cases, these reasons were brought on by the good things about us. We should value them. They made us what we are today, even if they once had less-than-salubrious effects. And we should also value the things that got us out, including critical thinking, skepticism, willingness to laugh at those who take themselves too seriously, and regard for our own way of thinking over what others will think. (We might have learned some of these things in church, too.)

Parable of the sheep and the goats

I admit that goats are weird and creepy.

But are they so terrible that Jesus had to make a parable with them as a villain?

Matthew 25:31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
25:32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
25:33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Wow. What happens to the goats?

Matthew 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

This is just another reference Jesus made to sending people into everlasting fire.

Let’s just take a moment and reflect on a group of people who have been the targets of prejudice in times past. While things have improved for them, they are still sometimes misunderstood even today. I’m talking about… the left-handed.

The Bible pretty consistently favours right-handers over left.

Ecclesastes 10:2 (King James Version)
A wise man’s heart is at his right hand; but a fool’s heart at his left.

When does the Bible talk about how great someone’s left hand is? Never. Left-handers were considered “sinister” — the word sinister even means ‘left-handed’. Just one more form of prejudice that the Bible writers found acceptable.

Ye have done it unto me

Okay, now for a change of pace. You know that I spend a lot of effort bashing away at the Standard Works. I do this because, frankly, they’re terrible and they teach bad things. They don’t deserve their reputation for teaching kindness and decency.

On the other hand, I have to give credit where credit is due, and here’s one of the best scriptures in the lot.

Matthew 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
25:35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
25:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
25:37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
25:38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
25:39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

A message missed by those who worship Republican Jesus.

Condescending Wonka

Lucy and Linus

Stephen Colbert perhaps said it best.

It’s great that Jesus encouraged love and generosity. On the other hand, it seems hypocritical of Jesus to teach love and generosity, and then in the very next verse threaten people with eternal torture in fire. (I might say: If Jesus tortures even one of the least of my brethren in fire for eternity, he has done it unto me.) But then this inconsistency is to be expected in a completely made-up story cobbled together over hundreds of years. Thank goodness it’s all a myth.

Let’s finish with a closing hymn. See you next week.

Gospel Doctrine for the Godless

An ex-Mormon take on LDS Sunday School lessons

Category: oh Jesus you haven’t changed a bit

BoM Lesson 20 (Alma the Younger)

“My Soul Is Pained No More”

Mosiah 25–28; Alma 36

Purpose

Reading

Main points of this lesson

How the Book of Mormon recommends dealing with non-believers

Laws about religious persecution

Destroy the church

Additional lesson ideas

Chiasmus

BoM Lesson 18 (Abinadi)

“God Himself . . . Shall Redeem His People”

Mosiah 12–17

Purpose

Reading

Main ideas for this lesson

Who is the Lord?

Prophets v apostates

Additional lesson ideas

Tense error

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 4 (Nephi’s Vision)

“The Things Which I Saw While I Was Carried Away in the Spirit”

1 Nephi 12–14

Purpose

Reading

Seed

Dark and filthy vs. white and beautiful

Main ideas for this lesson

The Great and Abominable Church

The colonization of the Americas

Revolutionary War

Additional lesson ideas

Apostasy

Disbelief is not dwindling.

NT Lesson 37 (Hebrews)

Jesus Christ: “The Author and Finisher of Our Faith”

Hebrews

Purpose

Reading

Main ideas for this lesson

Milk before meat

Unpardonable sin

Faith and evidence

Additional lesson ideas

“Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth”

NT Lesson 22 (More parables)

“Inherit the Kingdom Prepared for You”

Matthew 25

Purpose

Reading

Main ideas for this lesson

Parable of the ten virgins

Parable of the talents

Parable of the sheep and the goats

Ye have done it unto me

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