Gospel Doctrine for the Godless

An ex-Mormon take on LDS Sunday School lessons

Category: thought-terminating clichés (page 2 of 2)

NT Lesson 16 (The blind man)

2 May 2015 / / Comments Off on NT Lesson 16 (The blind man)

“I Was Blind, Now I See”

John 9–10

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To encourage independent thinking, and to question the goodness of a god who allows suffering.

Reading

This lesson covers two stories
  • Jesus heals a blind man on the Sabbath
  • Discourse on sheep

Main ideas for this lesson

Why God allows affliction

It’s a classic question that religious people ponder: Why does God allow suffering?

Nice try, Jesus, but I’m not the omnipotent one here.

Ask: What answers have you given to the question of suffering?

One answer is the “Calvin’s Dad” answer: that adversity builds character.

For some kinds of suffering, this is true. I’m heading to the gym today, where I will suffer some discomfort, with the expectation that I will get swol. But this suffering is rather mild. For the suffering of, say, a parent whose child is swept from their very own arms during a tsunami (true second hand story), it’s arguable that there are better ways to build character, if that’s what god is trying to do.

Another answer is that there are consequences for our actions, and we should experience those consequences and learn from them. Again, very true if we’re talking about actions that I chose to do.

But what about suffering that arises not from our actions — or indeed, anyone’s actions? What about natural disasters (like our tsunami), which God could of course avert? What about diseases that arise? What about (say) polio, where people needed to be placed in devices so they could breathe? This isn’t a consequence of anyone’s actions, and it’s difficult to see how this debilitating condition has helped anyone to be stronger, in character or otherwise. Why does a god whose followers claim him to be loving and good allow this kind of suffering?

Stephen Fry elaborated on this theme, rather impressively off the cuff, I’d say.

Jesus has a rather surprising answer.

John 9:1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
9:2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

The disciples think that this misfortune is God’s retribution for sin. Well, thank goodness Jesus is going to put that notion out of their heads, right?

9:3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

WHAT

Think about that. For his entire life, this man has lived without sight, and for what? So he can sit there when Jesus comes along, get healed, and show everyone how great God is.

In other words, God apparently made him blind to prove a point. And in so doing, God creates entirely unnecessary suffering.

Is it really surprising that the people who best understood the Hebrew Bible found this unpersuasive?

Moreover, let’s us imagine that all of this is true. Is awe the most appropriate response to this kind of deity? Do you even feel safe in a universe run by such a being?

This is a universe in which the supreme being can withhold valuable information for centuries, and cause illnesses so that he can use them in order to reveal that which he could have revealed all along without using sentient beings as pawns.

The father and Jesus are like an arsonist and firefighter tag team. One sets the fire and the other takes it out. And we are all supposed to be impressed that someone can set fires and another can take it out.

Ask: How does Jesus heal the man?
Answer: He has magical saliva.

John 9:6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,
9:7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

This must have been a really miraculous event, because not only did it restore the man’s sight, it also somehow gave him the neural training that babies typically get in their first year or so to be able to process vision at all. Wow!

Except this is pretty bogus. If someone hasn’t trained their occipital lobe to interpret visual stimuli, then simply turning their eyes back on doesn’t help them see. It takes months. One man who had this happen was Shirl Jennings. Actually, Jennings had had his sight until age 3, at which time he went blind. Science restored his sight years later, but the resulting visual input was confusing for him. He didn’t mind when he went blind again soon after, mostly because then he didn’t have to watch the terrible movie based on his life starring Val Kilmer and Mira Sorvino. #tendermercies

Ew.

The Gospel Doctrine teacher trapped inside me is telling me that the point of the story is that Jesus makes blind people see, both temporally and spiritually. But even Jesus quashes that notion. According to Jesus, he came to cause both sight and blindness.

John 9:39 And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.

As we’ve seen before, Jesus wants to conceal truth from some people — usually the unprepared or antagonistic. Wait, aren’t those the people who reject him? This is actually a rationale constructed to answer the question, “If Jesus is so true, why doesn’t everyone accept him?” Which I think is a great question, but Jesus’ answer is that they’re blind. Not because they’ve engaged in rational thought and decided to only accept ideas with evidentiary support. They’re just blind. To a Christian, there’s never a good reason to come to a different conclusion. If you don’t buy this jazz, it’s you who has the problem.

If I were to engage in some textual analysis, I’d suppose the latter blind group is the smarty-pantses of the world who think they know stuff, but don’t accept Jesus. I think we’re talking about Kevin Sorbo’s sneering professor character in God’s Not Dead.

Because the best way to stimulate students’ critical thinking is to browbeat them with your atheism. Works every time.

This could be seen as one more manifestation of the kind of anti-intellectualism that’s typical of Christianity.

Well, that’s enough bad movies for one lesson, but the rest of the story about the blind man is actually quite interesting in places, so have a read.

Sheep

Chapter 10 takes us to a discourse on sheep.

John 10:1 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
10:2 But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

And so on.

I have never liked the sheep metaphor. It’s supposed to be about caring for others, the shepherd laying down his life for the sheep. But sheep do not represent the best in us. Sheep are docile and stupid.

If those are the kinds of followers Jesus was after, then there are a lot of people like that, but I aspire to something a little smarter, a little more independent. Less ovine, is what I’m saying.

And then there’s the “other sheep” comment, which has spurred loads of speculation.

John 10:16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

LDS doctrine says it’s ancient Americans, and Book of Mormon Jesus repeats this verse to them. Including the part about sheep, which in the absence of any actual sheep, would have made no sense to them. But more on that when we get to the Book of Mormon next year.

Additional lesson ideas

Testimony

The LDS manual encourages readers to share their testimony, using the formerly blind man as an example.

How did this man’s testimony grow as he continued to share it? (Compare verses 11, 17, 33, and 38.) How has your testimony grown as you have shared it?

There’s something sinister here. LDS leaders encourage people to “share their testimony” as a way of gaining a testimony.

Boyd Packer
It is not unusual to have a missionary say, “How can I bear testimony until I get one? How can I testify that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that the gospel is true? If I do not have such a testimony, would that not be dishonest?”
Oh, if I could teach you this one principle. A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it!

Mormons enthusiastically promote this bad advice.

Dallin Oaks
Another way to seek a testimony seems astonishing when compared with the methods of obtaining other knowledge. We gain or strengthen a testimony by bearing it. Someone even suggested that some testimonies are better gained on the feet bearing them than on the knees praying for them.

In other words, saying you believe something has a curious tendency to make you believe that thing, since why would you say it unless you believe it? In other other words, Latter-day Saints are encouraged to lie to themselves and others, until they believe it. The message here is: Let the power of cognitive dissonance and peer pressure work for you! But it’s dishonest, and has no place in a thinking person’s toolkit for finding truth. What blamed fool thing couldn’t you convince yourself of using this method, if you tried hard enough?

One more time for this Dan Barker quote.

I have not really thought about evolution for a long time, and I still think it’s true. When something’s true, it doesn’t need to be continually pumped up like a leaky bike tyre.

Blasphemy review

Is anyone alarmed at the ease with which people pick up rocks to stone Jesus?

John 10:30 I and my Father are one.
10:31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.

Stoning and summary execution is the kind of thing religious people do when they can get away with it. There’s a bit on blasphemy in this lesson (just search for blasphemy on the page, and I talk about it on the radio in this lesson.

Let’s finish with a closing hymn. This one seems appropriate: Morrissey, with “Yes, I Am Blind”. It’s even got sheep in it.

NT Lesson 9 (Sermon on the Mount 2)

1 March 2015 / / 2 Comments

“Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God”

Matthew 6–7

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To show that Christians and Mormons ignore the good advice in the Sermon of the Mount, and that it was assembled long after Jesus would have existed.

Reading

For this lesson, we continue our discussion of Jesus’ signature teaching: the Sermon on the Mount.

Before we do, though, here’s a helpful suggestion from the LDS New Testament Lesson Manual:

Suggestion for teaching: Stories can illustrate gospel principles and keep class members’ attention as few other teaching methods can…. When you tell a story, be sure class members understand whether it is a true account or a fictional story you have created to make a point.

That’s ironic, considering that the entire Sermon on the Mount was probably entirely made up decades later, but passed off as a true account. We’ll see some evidence for that in this lesson.

Main ideas for this lesson

Giving alms

Jesus had some pretty good advice about how to go about doing good works.

Matthew 6:1 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
6:2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

Here are some Latter-day Saints ignoring Jesus’ advice and turning their humanitarian aid into a PR opportunity.

Not to carp too much; I’d rather they do good stuff than not. But according to Jesus, they have their reward, and it’s a yellow t-shirt. No one looks good in yellow.

Pray in closets

Back in my Utah days, my ward had a Gospel Doctrine teacher who thought that school prayer was the number one issue to help lift America out of its spiritual malaise. Young people aren’t praying to the Christian god? Give them a little inducement. Train up a child, etc.

Wonder how he thought that, given this scripture:

Matthew 6:5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Whoops — this text is evidence that the Sermon on the Mount was written much later. People wouldn’t have been praying in the synagogues, because they weren’t used as houses of prayer until after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE.

And there’s another angle here: In the US Constitution, the Establishment Clause says that the government isn’t allowed to promote one religion over another. And that means that if Christians get to pray to their god in a government forum, then so does everybody else. Ceremonial deism cuts both ways.

But Christians haven’t been good at passing the mic. They’ve interrupted a Hindu priest,

a Muslim speaker,

and even an atheist invocation.

If only they’d believed their own Bible, they wouldn’t have opened this can of worms.

My favourite group, though, is the Satanic Temple. When Christians handed out Bibles in Florida high schools, they handed out the Satanic Children’s Big Book of Activities. (PDF)

I can’t put it better than this:

According to Satanic Temple spokesperson Lucien Greaves, the organization “would never seek to establish a precedent of disseminating our religious materials in public schools because we believe our constitutional values are better served by respecting a strong separation of Church and State.”
That being said, “if a public school board is going to allow religious pamphlets and full Bibles to be distributed to students—as is the case in Orange County, Florida—we think the responsible thing to do is to ensure that these students are given access to a variety of differing religious opinions, as opposed to standing idly by while one religious voice dominates the discourse and delivers propaganda to youth,” he added.

And when there are Ten Commandments monuments on public land, they’re there to erect a statue to the god Baphomet. Won’t this look grand?

What I love about this is that it’s surgical. The only people who will be freaked out by this are those who are the intended target; everyone else will laugh up their sleeve. I don’t care much for Satanism, but I’m happy to throw them some dough if they’ll keep up their antics. Why don’t you? The membership cards are very becoming.

I’m not holding the card in this photo because IT BURNZ

Lord’s Prayer

One of my favourite callings was conducting the Stake Choir. Once we did Duruflé’s Notre Père. (We may not have sounded as good as this choir.)

But some members were surprised that the text stopped here:

Et ne nous soumets pas à la tentation,
mais délivre-nous du mal.

And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

One member asked, “What happened to ‘for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory’?”

“Well,” I had to explain, “it appears that that part wasn’t in the original. It was added later.” Many members of the choir adopted grave looks, while a couple of others nodded reluctantly.

For so it would appear. The part of the Lord’s Prayer known as the Doxology does not appear in the earliest copies of the text. In fact, it’s the view of some writers that the entire Sermon was cobbled together from Jewish wisdom after the fact.

Consider the lilies

Here’s some really terrible advice: Don’t worry about your life.

Matthew 6:25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
6:26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
6:27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
6:28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
6:29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
6:30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
6:31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
6:32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

He’s having a go at the flowers now!

This scripture explains why Christians weren’t very popular in the early days; they were a bunch of starving nudists. Nobody likes it when a naked guy is hanging over your shoulder asking, “Hey, are you going to eat that?”

This scripture makes absolutely no sense in terms of how people should live their lives…

…but it makes a lot of sense if Jesus was a cult leader who taught that the world was going to end within the lifetimes of the people listening to him, which appears to be the case. We’ll be highlighting more examples throughout the New Testament.

And of course, this scripture contains another iteration of the worst advice in religion:

Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Here again, religion claims its right to place itself first over family, over your life plans and goals, over your own thoughts, over everything. It’s obscene that some people accept this dominance.

The strait and narrow

Jesus admits that his mission is going to be a failure in numerical terms.

Matthew 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Every unpopular movement needs to explain its unpopularity. (Think conspiracy theorists or 21st century Marxists.) If what they’re doing is so obviously true, then why isn’t it obvious to everyone? The typical strategy is to blame people — or is that sheeple?

This ‘broad and narrow gates’ explanation is Christianity’s way of explaining its (then) unpopularity. That changed a bit when Christianity really took off, but the scripture is still there, and can now be used by unpopular Christian fringe movements (like Mormonism) as a way of making theselves feel better.

Ask: If God knew that most people would find destruction, and that all but a few people wouldn’t find life eternal, why did he create them?
Ask: Could he have created only the people that he knew in advance would make it, so that the rest wouldn’t be condemned to eternal isolation and/or torment? If so, why didn’t he?

Additional lesson ideas

The Lord’s Prayer as a linguistic tool

The Lord’s Prayer is fantastically useful to linguists. Because it’s been copied and translated so many times, it’s often used to compare languages, and track how they change over time. Here are some examples from English. And here’s how it probably sounded in Old English in the 11th century.

Ask: Can you recognise any of this text?

Even though it’s from over 1,000 years ago, there are times when you can still understand it, particularly if you know the text well in Modern English. Notice also how “give us this day” becomes “syle us to dæg”. The word syle would eventually become sell, but its meaning would change.

Vain repetition

This scripture concerns the language of prayer.

Matthew 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Ask: What phrases are you aware of that get repeated endlessly in LDS prayers?
Possible answers:

  • Our dear Heavenly Father — specifically “dear”
  • That food may “nourish and strengthen our bodies” and “do us the good that we need”
  • “Moisture”

Even Mormons are aware of these patterns. They’re not really a problem; they’re just cultural buildup that happens naturally as communities of humans share verbal behaviour.

The special language of prayer

The LDS Lesson Manual refers to a talk in which Dallin Oaks goes full linguistic prescriptivist.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks commented on the kind of language we should use when we pray: “The special language of prayer follows different forms in different languages, but the principle is always the same. We should address prayers to our Heavenly Father in words which speakers of that language associate with love and respect and reverence and closeness. . . . Men and women who wish to show respect will take the time to learn the special language of prayer”
(in Conference Report, Apr. 1993, 17, 20; or Ensign, May 1993, 16, 18).

Okay, so what kind of language is he recommending? Following the link to the conference talk, we see that God wants us to mimic obsolete 17th century Jacobean English, complete with thee, thou, thy, and thine.

Modern English has no special verbs or pronouns that are intimate, familiar, or honorific. When we address prayers to our Heavenly Father in English, our only available alternatives are the common words of speech like you and your or the dignified but uncommon words like thee, thou, and thy which were used in the King James Version of the Bible almost five hundred years ago. Latter-day Saints, of course, prefer the latter. In our prayers we use language that is dignified and different, even archaic.
The men whom we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators have consistently taught and urged English-speaking members of our Church to phrase their petitions to the Almighty in the special language of prayer.

Wait; is Oaks unaware that the thee and thou forms weren’t historically formal — that they used to be informal, and they’ve only recently been reanalysed as formal? No, he’s aware.

The special language of prayer that Latter-day Saints use in English has sometimes been explained by reference to the history of the English language. It has been suggested that thee, thou, thy, and thine are simply holdovers from forms of address once used to signify respect for persons of higher rank. But more careful scholarship shows that the words we now use in the language of prayer were once commonly used by persons of rank in addressing persons of inferior position. These same English words were also used in communications between persons in an intimate relationship. There are many instances where usages of English words have changed over the centuries. But the history of English usage is not the point.
Scholarship can contradict mortal explanations, but it cannot rescind divine commands or inspired counsel. In our day the English words thee, thou, thy, and thine are suitable for the language of prayer, not because of how they were used anciently but because they are currently obsolete in common English discourse.

See there? Fancy-pants linguists can’t tell Oaks anything.

I watched this talk at the time, and I’d even done some linguistics. I watched open-mouthed as this guy made such a big deal about pronouns, and I thought: God has got to be bigger than this.

Ask: What issues might be more pressing in the church and in the world than the pronouns people use?

Consider: Latter-day Saints went to conference that day to listen to men who were uniquely in contact with a god. This god has all knowledge, and would be uniquely qualified to give insight on, and solutions to, pressing world problems. And when Mormons went to these oracles, what did they learn? The pronouns God wants people to use for him. How much more trivial could this be?

Consider also: This is a god who seems unconcerned when viruses mutate and flourish; when tsunamis, floods, and earthquakes kill thousands; when fundamentalists use his name to murder entire communities; when children are struck down with cancers — but you’d better mind your pronouns around him because that’s the kind of thing he really gives a shit about.

Ask: What function might this use of language serve?
Answer: Communities can mark themselves off as different by adopting idiosyncratic norms in dress, diet, and language. You can’t form a sense of difference by doing normal things — reality is equally available to everyone — so this is how they forge a common identity. Mormons’ insistence on antiquated language is the linguistic equivalent of everyone wearing old-style clothing or hats, and is one more example of religion’s typical conservatism.

It should also be noted that the moral sense of a religion is also antiquated, behind the times, and just generally stuck. Religions are not at the forefront of progress, whether ethical, linguistic, or sartorial. They trail, and must be dragged painfully along to be viable.

NT Lesson 6 (Calling the Twelve Apostles)

7 February 2015 / / 1 Comment

“They Straightway Left Their Nets”

Luke 4:14–32; 5; 6:12–16; Matthew 10

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To remind readers that Christianity, and Mormonism in particular, drives a wedge between family members by design, and sets itself up as a substitute family.

Reading

This lesson covers the following stories:

  • Jesus calls his disciples

Translation, Picard, translation. But more later.

  • Jesus heals people and casts out unclean spirits

Main ideas for this lesson

Religion over family

In this reading, Jesus gives some of the more evil scriptures, involving how members should react to opposition.

Luke 6:22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
6:23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

When I was in the mission field, a mimeograph went around about how to install a meme in an investigator’s head. It was called “The Opposition Dialogue”. (Does anyone else remember something like this?) It had these basic elements:

  • In the time leading up to your baptism, it may be that people you know will try to prevent you from joining the church.
  • This opposition comes from Satan. Satan doesn’t want you to join the church.
  • You need to join the church in spite of any opposition you get.

The Opposition Dialogue had an important purpose. In a normal situation, opposition from family members could derail an investigator’s plan to join the church. And why wouldn’t it — people listen to family members, since they’re usually people who care about them and have an interest in them. There’s a shared history.

But the purpose of the Opposition Dialogue was to make that opposition an expected thing, and to turn it to our advantage. Without the OD, the investigator might think: “My family is concerned, and they have information that says I shouldn’t continue.” But with the OD, that same investigator might think, “This is the reaction the elders said I’d get! I should ignore it.”

Though I didn’t realise it at the time, the OD was a not-so-subtle way of getting investigators to ignore input from family members, and only accept information from the missionaries — as well as start looking for Satan around every corner. It was a way of starting people on the process of turning against their families. I never used the OD in discussions, but I’m sure that I encouraged people to ignore information from anywhere but the church, even if that meant cutting themselves off from family. It was a cult tactic, pure and simple.

And, like many evil ideas, it comes straight from Jesus, a end-of-the-world cult leader who insisted on his religion over family. Here it is later on in this reading.

Matthew 10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
10:36 And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.
10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

We need to recognise that, despite its family-friendly façade, the LDS Church does not promote family. It subverts the family, and sets the religion up as a kind of substitute family. It even borrows kinship terms: Brother and Sister So-and-So; the bishop is the father of the ward, and so on. One need only go so far as the Exmormon subreddit to find heart-rending stories about how one spouse stops believing, and then is treated like an unworthy wretch by the believing spouse. Or children who very sensibly question the truth claims of the church, only to find themselves kicked out of home, or coerced back into activity. There are the happy stories, where people are eventually joined in unbelief by their partner or family. I’m lucky; I still have a good relationship with my good-hearted TBM sister, though I’m aware that she at times feels a great deal of worry over my non-existent soul. But her concern — and all the broken families and all the fractiousness and all the ostracism — is completely unnecessary. It only exists because there is a religion that has codified belief in itself and support of itself over one’s own family as a foundational meme.

I don’t know what it takes to make a person choose a religion over their spouse or their own child, but whatever it takes, Christianity has done it. Every time I see it happen, I think: That is some powerful juju right there. And it’s all approved by Jesus himself. It went to work early on in Christianity. Separation from family is a feature, not a bug.

The Golden Rule

As far as moral codes go, the teaching which has become known as the Golden Rule is a pretty good one.

Luke 6:31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

We could quibble about the phrasing. I can think of maybe two variations that might improve it a bit.

  • Don’t do something to others if you wouldn’t want them to do that to you — which has become known as the Silver Rule
  • Do unto others as they would like you to do unto them — which I think of as George’s Platinum Rule

Still, the Golden Rule as it stands is a good way to go. When people make lists of secular commandments — as they sometimes do — this one consistently comes up at the top.

But here’s the thing: the Golden Rule predates Jesus, and is not particularly unique among the world’s religions. Here are some formulations in other religions.

Native American Spirituality: “Do not wrong or hate your neighbor. For it is not he who you wrong, but yourself.” Pima proverb.
Taoism: “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.” Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien
Shinto: “The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form” Munetada Kurozumi
Zoroastrianism: “That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself”. Dadistan-i-dinik 94:5
Confucianism: “Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state.” Analects 12:2
Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” Udana-Varga 5,1

And many others. It also comes up in the writings of non-religious people:

Plato: “May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me.” (Greece; 4th century BCE)
Socrates: “Do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you.” (Greece; 5th century BCE)
Epictetus: “What you would avoid suffering yourself, seek not to impose on others.” (circa 100 CE)

It was also a strong contender in the recent 10 Atheist Commandments, crowdsourced from ordinary people.

7. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.

Sounds good to me.

Additional lesson ideas

Taking apart the roof

There’s kind of a funny story here: Jesus is teaching in a house, and some men are trying to bring a sick man so Jesus can heal him. But there are too many people listening to Jesus for them to get through the door. So what do they do? Easy! Haul the guy up onto the roof, and start dismantling the roof tiles! These guys know how to get stuff done, and I appreciate that.

This story appears in both Mark and Luke — with one crucial difference. The author of Mark tells the story fairly straightforwardly. The author of Luke tells the same story, but he forgets to mention that the story is taking place in a house. The men are pulling off tiles for a house that hasn’t been mentioned in the story yet. Compare:

Mark Luke
Mark 2:1 And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house.
2:2 And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them.		 Luke 5:17 And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them.
2:3 And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. 5:18 And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him.
2:4 And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. 5:19 And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus.

This is what we’d expect if Luke’s version were copied a bit haphazardly from an earlier source, and the author lost track of where in the story he was copying from.

How did Jakob become James?

In the Greek text, the apostle James is Ἰάκωβος, or to put it more Anglishly, Jakob. How did he turn into James? Was someone trying to brown-nose King James?

Not exactly. This rundown is as good as any, but the short version is that Greek Iacobus turned to Latin Iacomus. It’s easy for a /b/ to change to an /m/; just that one’s oral and the other is nasal. From there it was a short hop to Old French Jammes, and thence to James.

Oh, and Santiago in Spanish? That’s just the way they said Sanctu Iacobu, or Saint James.

UPDATE: I missed this one, but Redditor apostatereligion mentioned it, and it was too good not to pass on.

Joseph Smith seemed unaware that Jacobus and Jacomus referred to the same people. In his King Follett discourse, he mischaracterised the sound change as a translation error.

I am going to show you an error. I have an old book of the New Testament in the Hebrew, Latin, German, and Greek. I have been reading the German and find it to be the most [nearly] correct, and to correspond nearest to the revelations I have given for the last fourteen years. It tells about Jachobod the son of Zebedee. It means Jacob. In the English New Testament it is translated James. Now if Jacob had the keys, you might talk about James through all eternity and never get the keys. In the 21st verse of the fourth chapter of Matthew, the German edition gives the word Jacob instead of James. How can we escape the damnation of hell except God reveal to us? Men bind us with chains. Latin says Jachobod means Jacob; Hebrew says it means Jacob; Greek says Jacob; German says Jacob.

Yeah, you wouldn’t want to be getting any keys from James and not Jacob, even though they’re… the… same person. As apostatereligion drily notes: “Some prophet.”

But then Joseph Smith had a little trouble keeping his transliterated Bible characters straight. Elias, anyone? (But more on that soon enough.)

OT Lesson 47 (Ezra and Nehemiah)

14 December 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 47 (Ezra and Nehemiah)

“Let Us Rise Up and Build”

Ezra 1–8; Nehemiah 1–2; 4; 6; 8

LDS manual: here

Reading

As this lesson opens, Israel is having one of its times when they’ve forgotten all about that bastard Jehovah (soon to become Jesus). And what a great time that could have been. They could have done regular things like other people, and not have had to engage in bizarre loopholes and workarounds for their unworkable lifestyle, like hanging strings on poles all over town, or getting other people to turn on their lights for them. But no, as we saw in lesson OT 29, some blamed fool decided to revive the curse and return religion to largely secular Jews.

That blamed fool was actually two people: Ezra, a priest, and Nehemiah. The two of them were influential in building the wall of Jerusalem (Nehemiah) and rebuilding the temple (Ezra). As always, religion builds walls and creates differences between people.

Main points from this lesson

Cyrus did not read about himself in Isaiah.

The LDS lesson manual slips up on the very first step.

Ezra 1–6. King Cyrus reads his name in Isaiah’s prophecies and is filled with a desire to do the Lord’s will.

This refers to Cyrus giving the okay for the Jews to build a temple.

And:

The words of Cyrus that are recorded in Ezra 1:2 refer to a prophecy in Isaiah 44:28 that mentioned Cyrus by name (see also Isaiah 45:1–5; explain that although the story of Cyrus comes before the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, Isaiah lived about 150 years before Cyrus was born).

As we’ve already seen in our lessons, Isaiah (or rather, Deutero-Isaiah) would not have mentioned Cyrus 150 years before Cyrus. Isaiah v2 only knew Cyrus once he’d hit the political scene, and it was then that he started dropping in references to him.

In other words, if Cyrus ever did see his name in the OT, the ink was still wet.

Back to the manual.

• Why did Cyrus decree that a temple should be built again in Jerusalem? (See Ezra 1:1–2.) How did Cyrus know the Lord wanted him to do this?

Who knows what he thought, but it was probably one of those bursts of tolerance that leaders are prone to, especially when they want to ingratiate themselves with a troublesome rabble. Cyrus probably realised fairly quickly that letting the Jews build a temple was the quickest way of getting them onside. Then they’d be babbling away in their temple, not causing trouble for him.

As always…

Where did the Mormons get the idea that Cyrus saw his name in the Bible, anyway? From an ancient Jewish historian.

The words of Cyrus that are recorded in Ezra 1:2 refer to a prophecy in Isaiah 44:28 that mentioned Cyrus by name (see also Isaiah 45:1–5; explain that although the story of Cyrus comes before the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, Isaiah lived about 150 years before Cyrus was born). The ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus reported that Cyrus read his name in Isaiah’s prophecies, was touched by the Spirit of the Lord, and desired to fulfill what was written (The Works of Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, trans. William Whiston [n.d.], bk. 11, chap. 1, pars. 1–2).

Mormon scholarship doesn’t seem to have progressed far beyond the ancient, or maybe it’s just a case of picking whatever works.

More from the manual:

• How would you feel if you were reading the scriptures and read a prophecy that gave your name and described specific things you would do?

I would think “How clever I am to have retconned myself into the Scriptures,” just like Joseph Smith did when he wrote himself into the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

I would also think: If I actually decide to do this because I just read it, doesn’t that kind of invalidate the prediction? That way, the prophet wouldn’t have really been seeing the future; he basically just wrote a suggestion saying, “Someone should totally do this.” Self-fulfilling prophecies kind of run counter to the spirit of the thing.

How Mormons should relate to ex-Mormons.

One of the stated purposes of this lesson is:

to show Christlike love to those who oppose the work of the Lord.

With that in mind, here’s a question from the manual:

How did the Jews respond to these efforts to stop the construction of the walls? (See Nehemiah 4:9, 13–15.)

Good question, manual. Let’s read the answer.

Neh. 4:9 Nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night, because of them.
…
4:13 Therefore set I in the lower places behind the wall, and on the higher places, I even set the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows.
4:14 And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them: remember the LORD, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.
4:15 And it came to pass, when our enemies heard that it was known unto us, and God had brought their counsel to nought, that we returned all of us to the wall, every one unto his work.

Answers: They set a watch against them, and armed themselves to the teeth.

Wait, is that what they meant? I thought the idea was to be kind and to show some lurve. But that wasn’t the view of Brigham Young.

“I say, rather than that apostates should flourish here, I will unsheath [sic] my bowie knife, and conquer or die [Great commotion in the congregation, and a simultaneous burst of feeling, assenting to the declaration.]. Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put to the line, and righteousness to the plummet [Voices, generally, ‘go it, go it.’]. If you say it is right, raise your hands [All hands up.]. Let us call upon the Lord to assist us in this, and every good work.”
– Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 1, p. 83; online at http://journals.mormonfundamentalism.org/Vol_01/refJDvol1-16.html

Or Sidney Rigdon.

…it was the imperative duty of the Church to obey the word of Joseph Smith, or the presidency, without question or inquiry, and that if there were any that would not, they should have their throats cut from ear [to] ear.”
– Sidney Rigdon letter to Apostle Orson Hyde, October 21, 1844, in Nauvoo Neighbor, December 4, 1844; see also Quinn, Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, p. 94

Back to the lesson manual:

Elder Marvin J. Ashton counseled: “Certain people and organizations are trying to provoke us into contention with slander, innuendos, and improper classifications. How unwise we are in today’s society to allow ourselves to become irritated, dismayed, or offended because others seem to enjoy the role of misstating our position or involvement.”

I wonder how Elder Ashton would have felt to realise that the LDS Church has had to publish information that essentially confirms what Mormons used to call “slander and innuendo”.

New rule: the church doesn’t get to complain that sources are misstating the church’s position when those sources turn out to be a better source of information about the church than the church itself.

Ashton continued:

“Ours is to explain our position through reason, friendly persuasion, and accurate facts.”

This strategy was dropped because reason and accurate facts are not advantageous to the church.

[Church history] if not properly written or properly taught, … may be a faith destroyer… The writer or teacher who has an exaggerated loyalty to the theory that everything must be told is laying a foundation for his own judgement… The Lord made it very clear that some things are to be taught selectively and some things are to be given only to those who are worthy.
Apostle Boyd K. Packer, “The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect,” Reprinted in BYU Studies, v.21, no.3, 1981, pp.259-277

“Ignore them.” How Mormons engage with critics

This lesson manual is decades old, but conditions have shifted since its publication. The LDS leadership is having to deal with a member exodus, Kirtlandian in its extent. With more members leaving the church than ever, it seems likely that almost every Mormon will be familiar with someone who has left. How would the church like its members to engage with challenges from former members? Let’s see what the manual has to say.

What did Nehemiah do when Sanballat asked him to stop working and meet with him? (See Nehemiah 6:1–4.) How do some people try to distract Church members from the Lord’s work today? How should we respond to such distractions?

Let’s look at the relevant scripture:

Neh. 6:1 Now it came to pass when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem the Arabian, and the rest of our enemies, heard that I had builded the wall, and that there was no breach left therein; (though at that time I had not set up the doors upon the gates;)
6:2 That Sanballat and Geshem sent unto me, saying, Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono. But they thought to do me mischief.
6:3 And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?
6:4 Yet they sent unto me four times after this sort; and I answered them after the same manner.

The implication, it seems to me, is that members should ignore critics. I can see why that option is attractive — it allows members to disengage from ideas that might get them thinking and asking questions.

It’s a strategy that Mormons are very good at. Here are some thoughts I learned from my years in the church that allowed me to avoid uncomfortable lines of reasoning.

  • Some people will be hostile to the church, no matter what.
  • They don’t want to find out more; they just want to argue.
  • They can leave the church, but they can’t leave it alone.

Even just branding a person, a book, or a website as “anti-Mormon” is a way of categorising and dismissing ideas so that they don’t need to be dealt with. They are, to use a term popularised by psychologist Robert Jay Lifton, thought-terminating clichés.

The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.

What other thought-terminating clichés have you heard (or used) to dismiss criticism of the church? I’d love to see them in comments.

Additional teaching ideas

How religion separates people

Israel was on a course to integrating itself with its neighbours. This swing toward religious bigotry stopped that. Nehemiah’s reading of the law caused them to block intermarriage…

Neh. 10:29 They clave to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God’s law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord, and his judgments and his statutes;
10:30 And that we would not give our daughters unto the people of the land, not take their daughters for our sons:

…and exclude people of Ammonite and Moabite descent.

Neh. 13:1 On that day they read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people; and therein was found written, that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God for ever;
13:2 Because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them, that he should curse them: howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing.
13:3 Now it came to pass, when they had heard the law, that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude.

It looks like linguistic discrimination was part of the deal.

13:23 In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab:
13:24 And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people.
13:25 And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.

Religion may give some benefits to members of the in-group. But the end result is discrimination against members of the out-group. I suppose this is because religion sets up a system of beliefs, goals, habits, and practices common to members, but that non-members don’t share. That helps members forge a common identity, but it makes it hard for members and non-members to understand each other. In good times, it can engender polite curiosity, but in bad times, it can lead to hostility and bloodshed. This is the social cost of religion, and it’s just too high.

Modern wall builders

The current-day spiritual progeny of Ezra and Nehemiah are Wallbuilders, a political group that promotes pseudo-history and serves as a vehicle for ersatz historian David Barton.

You can find out more about Barton on his Right Wing Watch page.

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