Gospel Doctrine for the Godless

An ex-Mormon take on LDS Sunday School lessons

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OT Lesson 39 (Deutero-Isaiah 2)

19 October 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 39 (Deutero-Isaiah 2)

“How Beautiful upon the Mountains”

Isaiah 50–53

LDS manual: here

Reading

I didn’t make a post for this lesson at first. Now I feel like I have to explain why. The reason is that this lesson wasn’t very good. It covers four tiny chapters, and it’s all supposed to be about Jesus, and I didn’t really have anything to say besides, “Oh, this is so not about Jesus.”

And it’s boring. I was bored. So instead of posting a boring lesson, I watched a movie with my sweetheart, and this was my way of putting my priorities in place. I highly recommend it once in a while.

Anyway, it’s now the next week, and I still don’t really have anything to say about this lesson. But I will say one thing:

Who is the ‘suffering servant’ in Isaiah?

The view of Christianity is that Isaiah foretold Jesus. I’m sure that would have been a surprise to Isaiah. They’ve arrived at this view by cherry-picking scriptures that were about something else, and retroactively weaving it into a narrative about Jesus.

Most of the messianic scriptures concern a ‘servant’, which Christians think is Jesus.

52:13 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.

That’s one way to look at it, but another is that this servant is Israel itself. Here’s a page that treats that angle.

All I can say is that I’m glad I no longer have to live in a religious system where multiple conflicting answers are drawn from vague metaphorical scriptures, with absolutely no way to evaluate between the answers. This is my big beef with religion.

Got any other insights? Help me out and put them in comments.

Conference Break (Song of Solomon)

4 October 2014 / / Comments Off on Conference Break (Song of Solomon)

It’s Conference Sunday!

Which normally means no lesson. But it seems like this would be a good opportunity to address a gap in the church curriculum. There’s no lesson for the Song of Solomon. Never gets addressed.

Maybe that’s because Mormons have a complicated relationship with the Song of Solomon. Joseph Smith didn’t care for it much, saying

“the Songs of Solomon are not inspired writings.”

Joseph Fielding McConkie, a one-time professor of scripture at BYU, and owner of the most Mormon name ever (or even possible), said this:

Notwithstanding the inordinate efforts that have been made to make the light of the Spirit shine through it, the Song of Solomon does not give forth light nor is there a single spiritual truth to be found in it.

And an apostle, Mark E. Petersen, stapled the pages of the Song of Solomon shut in his bible so he wouldn’t look at it accidentally. During his life, he was an advocate for no nudity in marriage, and was tireless in his denunciation of enjoyment as a concept.

Here are all the naughty bits of the Song of Solomon, at least as far as my gutter mind could discern.

1:1 The song of songs, which is Solomon’s.
1:2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

Almost forgot: let us start with an opening hymn. This is the finest song ever to have been inspired by the Song of Solomon: Kiss Me by Stephen Duffy.

Be sure to check out his band ‘The Lilac Time’, if you care to.

We start out mild, with boobs.

1:13 A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.

Things get hot pretty quickly; as they always told us, light petting leads to other things. In this case, it’s oral sex.

2:3 As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

2:16 My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.

He describes parts of her body.

4:1 Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.

See how far that one gets you.

4:2 Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.
4:3 Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.
4:4 Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.
4:5 Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.

More oral.

4:16 Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.

Is this what I think it is? It can’t possibly.

5:4 My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.

A bit of a lull here.

5:6 I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself,

Boobs again.

7:2 Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies.
7:3 Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins.
7:7 This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.
7:8 I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples;

There’s a sibling thing going on. That’s odd. Maybe she’s complaining that, because they’re not siblings, they’re not allowed to be together. I dunno.

8:1 O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised.
8:2 I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.
8:3 His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me.
8:4 I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please.

A comparison of breast size between her and her sister.

8:8 We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?
8:9 If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver: and if she be a door, we will inclose her with boards of cedar.
8:10 I am a wall, and my breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favour.

On that note, our closing hymn.

See you next week.

OT Lesson 37 (Proto-Isaiah 2)

28 September 2014 / / 1 Comment

“Thou Hast Done Wonderful Things”

Isaiah 22; 24–26; 28–30

LDS manual: here

Reading

We’re still in the first of the three Isaiahs. If you want a representative chunk of Isaiah, chapter 34 wouldn’t be a bad bit to read. It’s got the main themes:

  • God is angry at the nations because they don’t love him enough

34:1 Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it.

  • He’s going to kill them.

34:2 For the indignation of the LORD is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter.

  • There’s going to be lots of blood.

34:3 Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
34:4 And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree
34:5 For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment.
34:6 The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

  • And then the mythical animals come.

34:7 And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.

The immortality idea is also starting to bubble up:

26:19 Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

Which is like saying: God’s going to take all the people he just killed and make them alive again. So no harm.

Main points from this lesson

Cherry-picking with Isaiah

When you look at it, Christianity has done something kind of amazing: it’s become incredibly popular by building itself onto an existing work, and it’s cobbled bits of that work together to assemble a rationale for its existence. It’s as if Wicked had managed to supplant The Wizard of Oz in popularity.

Lots of these bits are pulled from passages in Isaiah that were about something else. Here are some examples from the real lesson manual.

Isaiah 22:22. The Savior opens the door to Heavenly Father’s presence

22:20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah:
22:21 And I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand: and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.
22:22 And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

The lesson manual says this is about Jesus. But Isaiah says it’s about his servant Eliakim. Who’s right? Well, both apparently. Isaiah thinks he’s talking about his servant Eliakim, but remember, he’s speaking in a kind of secret symbolic code that no one can understand unless they’re trying to interpret it in a Jesusy way. Once you understand Mormon doctrine, you can come around after the fact, cherry-pick bits of this and that, and understand that he’s totally talking about Jesus in a way that fits the story you’re trying to tell. Got it?

Or this one. It seems to be talking about taking a bunch of kings from other countries and throwing them in prison, but instead of hewing them to pieces before the Lord, or cutting off their noses, ears, and privates like you’d see in the rest of the OT, they’re going to get taught the Gospel because this is totally about spirit prison.

Isaiah 24:21–22. The Savior shows mercy for those in spirit prison.

24:21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
24:22 And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.

See? Visited. By Jesus! How is that not about Spirit Prison.

Okay, see if you can guess what this one is about.

27:1 In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

Um, that’s one’s about Satan, I think. It’s probably how Jesus is going to defeat Satan at the Last Day. Yeah, totally.

See, Isaiah isn’t that hard.

There’s a very special prophecy about the Book of Mormon.

29:1 Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices.
29:2 Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel.
29:3 And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.
29:4 And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.

This scripture seems to be about a city called Ariel that God’s going to kill, but it’s actually about gold plates being buried in the ground. See, the Book of Mormon does have a ‘familiar’ sort of sound to it. It sounds kind of like the Bible. It has that same ‘spirit’ to it. So it has a ‘familiar spirit’. Heh.

But of course, familiar spirits in the Bible aren’t really a great thing. They’re always associated with witchcraft and necromancy. So this is an odd point to be making. Oh, well; not all the cherries you pick are winners.

Here’s another one. Anyone who’s sat in church for too long has heard the story of Professor Charles Anthon of Columbia University. Martin Harris took some of Joseph Smith’s drawings of the supposed characters that appeared on the supposed Gold Plates. According to Harris, Anthon said the characters were legit, and offered a certificate of authenticity. But when hearing that the plates were brought by an angel, Anthon tore the certificate up. Further, Anthon was supposed to have told Harris to bring the gold book for him to translate, and when told that a portion of it was sealed, Anthon allegedly said, “I cannot read a sealed book.”

All of this was supposed to have been foretold — in a manner that can only be described as oblique — by Isaiah.

29:11 And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:
29:12 And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

Let’s hear Professor Anthon’s side of the story, which was published in “History of Mormonism” by Howe.

Dear Sir — I received this morning your favor of the 9th instant, and lose no time in making a reply. The whole story about my having pronouncd the Mormonite inscription to be “reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics” is perfectly false. Some years ago, a plain, and apparently simple-hearted farmer, called upon me with a note from Dr. Mitchell of our city, now deceased, requesting me to decypher, if possible, a paper, which the farmer would hand me, and which Dr. M. confessed he had been unable to understand. Upon examining the paper in question, I soon came to the conclusion that it was all a trick, perhaps a hoax….
The farmer added, that he had been requested to contribute a sum of money towards the publication of the “golden book,” the contents of which would, as he had been assured, produce an entire change in the world and save it from ruin. So urgent had been these solicitations, that he intended selling his farm and handing over the amount received to those who wished to publish the plates. As a last precautionary step, however, he had resolved to come to New York, and obtain the opinion of the learned about the meaning of the paper which he brought with him, and which had been given him as a part of the contents of the book, although no translation had been furnished at the time by the young man with the spectacles. On hearing this odd story, I changed my opinion about the paper, and, instead of viewing it any longer as a hoax upon the learned, I began to regard it as part of a scheme to cheat the farmer of his money, and I communicated my suspicions to him, warning him to beware of rogues. He requested an opinion from me in writing, which of course I declined giving, and he then took his leave carrying the paper with him.

This paper was in fact a singular scrawl. It consisted of all kinds of crooked characters disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets. Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman letters inverted or placed sideways, were arranged in perpendicular columns, and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican Calender given by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence it was derived.

Ask: Whose story is probably closer to the truth?

For my part, I’m going with the learned professor. I think we’ve all known someone like Martin Harris — a serial believer who seems like an easy mark for con men. He’s the equivalent of that one friend who pays to see stage shows by mediums, and then gets mad when you tell them it’s probably bunk. Harris’s version of the episode has all the hallmarks of a story concocted during a cherry-picking expedition.

Line upon line

Any all-powerful god who knows the end from the beginning — and who has its plan together from the beginning — would be able to explain itself clearly, without having to resort to ambiguous piecemeal explanations or incremental modifications. Or periodic updates to cope with situations it didn’t foresee. And yet these are exactly what we see in the LDS Church.

In this lesson, we see a passage that is used to justify this practice:

28:10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
28:11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
28:12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
28:13 But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

This is a very convenient scripture. It allows for incremental rewriting of church doctrine. It also justifies concealing unappealing or embarrassing doctrines from members who aren’t “ready” for them.

Most of all, it allows church leaders to string members along. If we don’t know everything right now, if there aren’t convincing explanations for all the gaps and plot holes — don’t worry, Brother Midgley; everything will be revealed in the fulness of time. Line upon line!

It would make no sense for an all-knowing being to dole out information this way, but it makes a lot of sense for humans, who have problems with consistency and continuity.

Additional teaching ideas

Isaiah, the naked prophet

The real lesson manual ignores one of the more striking parts of Isaiah: he walks around naked and barefoot for three years.

20:1 In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it;
20:2 At the same time spake the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.
20:3 And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia;
20:4 So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

Now this isn’t the first time someone has showed his prophetic… power by prophesying naked. Saul also did back in 1 Samuel, and all the people were, shall we say, mightily impressed.

The church has tried to tamp down the nudity aspect of this scripture, partly because it might detract from the decorum of the prophetic office, and part because that’s a mental image no one really wants. So we have this:

(14-32) Isaiah 20:2. What Was Meant by Isaiah Walking “Naked and Barefoot”?
“With the great importance attached to the clothing in the East, where the feelings upon this point are peculiarly sensitive and modest, a person was looked upon as stripped and naked if he had only taken off his upper garment. What Isaiah was directed to do, therefore, was simply opposed to common custom, and not to moral decency. He was to lay aside the dress of a mourner and preacher of repentance, and to have nothing on but his tunic (cetoneth); and in this, as well as barefooted, he was to show himself in public.” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary, 7:1:372.)

See, he was wearing a tunic, and that meant ‘naked’. It didn’t mean ‘naked’ for Adam and Eve, or for Job, or for a lot of other examples in the Bible. But I suppose words can mean more than one thing, and maybe Isaiah wasn’t walking around starkers for three years.

Still, I think the modern prophet shtick could use, if not more nudity, a bit more performance art.

What I’m noticing from today’s lesson is the fluid quality of words. Naked isn’t really naked. A unicorn isn’t a unicorn, and prison has a special meaning, once you know the story. And of course, steel isn’t steel and a horse isn’t a horse. With that in mind, it’s odd that an all-knowing being decided to use human language to get his massage across. Language is imprecise, it changes over time, and it requires imperfect translators for everyone to understand it. Errors and imperfections can be introduced through any of those things. A god would know a better way of communicating his message, and yet he doesn’t. We can therefore conclude that he wants his message to be misunderstood — as indeed it is; God is the author of so much confusion — or that he doesn’t exist and this religion thing is a human enterprise.

What does Isaiah get wrong?

Failed prophecy

19:23 In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.
19:24 In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land:

We’re not likely to see an Egypt-Israel-Assyria alliance in (these) the latter days, as Assyria no longer exists. (No, it’s not the same as Syria.)

Isaiah is unclear on how the moon works

30:26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.

Since moonlight is reflected from the sun, it’s not possible for the moon to be as bright as the sun. And if the sun appeared to be seven times as bright as it does, it would fry us to a crisp.

More animals that don’t exist

30:6 The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.

Wow! Flying snakes of fire! Do they breathe fire, or do they just have fire coming off of them? Cool either way. I bet they’d get on well with the unicorns.

OT Lesson 36 (Proto-Isaiah 1)

21 September 2014 / / 2 Comments

The Glory of Zion Will Be a Defense

Isaiah 1–6

LDS manual: here

Reading

Now we’re into Isaiah. Many people are accustomed to thinking of Isaiah as one person. These people may be in for a surprise, as the Book of Isaiah was written by three people (or groups of people) at different times. There was Proto-Isaiah in chapters 1–39; Deutero-Isaiah, in chapters 40–55; and Trito-Isaiah, a committee who wrote chapters 56–66.

How do we know Isaiah was three people? By the science of forensic linguistics, the basis of which is that language offers us choices. Everyone has their own way of speaking, their own verbal tics and habits. Do you say that you “start” to do something, or do you “begin” to do something? Do you write ‘Internet’ with a capital I, or not? These stylistic choices are largely outside of our control, and can be used to identify us by our writing.

In the same way, each of the three sections of Isaiah show different characteristics, as though different people wrote it. Proto-Isaiah says “The Lord, Yahweh of hosts”, “remnant”, and “to stretch out the hand”, whereas Deutero-Isaiah never does. He does, however, say “all flesh” and “chosen” a lot, which Proto-Isaiah never does.

The idea of Isaiah as three people writing at different times will come into play a couple of lessons down the road, where we’ll see that Joseph Smith and friends blithely placed Isaiah’s words onto Nephi’s plates, without realising that Nephi wouldn’t have had access to them.

For this lesson, we’re in the domain of the first Isaiah.

Main point from this lesson

How to understand Isaiah

A Gospel Doctrine lesson is likely to offer some tips for understanding Isaiah. That’s what I did anyway, when I taught this class in Sunday School. I had two tips that I was very proud of, and that I thought were rock-solid at the time. They were:

1. It’s difficult to understand what Isaiah is prophesying about until after it happens.
2. Isaiah’s prophecies can have multiple fulfilments, both temporally and spiritually.

No, I’m serious, those were the tips. I swear to Zeus, I said that to a room full of grownups and nobody laughed. They all just swallowed it down. I think someone might have taken notes. I should have been embarrassed, and the members should have been rolling their eyes. But no, everyone nodded sagely.

Here’s why I should have been embarrassed. A prediction needs to be specific in order to be any use. I mean, it’s not much of a prediction if you can’t tell what it refers to until after it happens, is it? There’s no point in predicting that (say) a war will happen, but not giving a specific time or place. Wars are always happening, and it would be easy to point to some war, and claim a fulfilment of prophecy. There’s no point in predicting it will rain, but at some indefinite point in the future, and then claiming fulfilment when it eventually rains. Seriously, what wouldn’t count as a fulfilment of prophesy using that principle? “The cat sneezed. Isaiah was right again!” You could drive a truck through that.

So on point 1, of course it’s easy to tie some event back to a vague and poetic prophesy by Isaiah after the fact. But this is meaningless. And point 2 — allowing for multiple targets — just makes it easier for the believer to claim a hit.

So now I have one tip for understanding Isaiah, and every other prophet: They’re all either con artists, or they’re people with real problems. The problem is that people believe them.

Additional teaching ideas

Seraphim!

Isaiah 6 describes angels with wings. Six of ’em.

6:1 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
6:2 Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

Mormons really hate the idea of angels with wings. I suppose it’s because in the Mormon universe, angels are always human in origin. No wings on them.

There are two kinds of beings in heaven who are called angels: those who are spirits and those who have bodies of flesh and bone. Angels who are spirits have not yet obtained a body of flesh and bone, or they are spirits who have once had a mortal body and are awaiting resurrection. Angels who have bodies of flesh and bone have either been resurrected from the dead or translated.

But that wasn’t the view of the writer of Isaiah.

Funny story: I used to be Stake Music Director, and I directed the Stake choir. That was my favourite calling ever. I loved putting musical programmes together. I used to pick classical songs with lots of Latin, which got me in a bit of trouble sometimes. Members used to grizzle about it a bit, but the Stake Presidency had my back. They were cool guys, really.

For one musical fireside, I decided to have the choir and soloists doing musical numbers about the Atonement, but with relevant artwork projected on the wall. And for the Resurrection, I used The Resurrection (1873) by Carl Bloch.

And I got complaints. Why? You guessed it — angels with wings. Couldn’t believe it.

And it looks like the dear members in Dianella Stake aren’t the only ones who have a problem with this Bloch painting. When the painting was used for an Ensign cover, the wings got ‘Shopped out. Here’s the before and the after.

Ask: Can you spot the differences?

There’s more to this Photoshop job than just wings. Check out the shoulders.

Yep, they’ve covered the bare shoulders. Apparently, there’s a war on bare shoulders in the church these days. They’ve always preached about modesty, but this is something new, just in the last ten or twenty years or so. I don’t remember people haranguing little girls about their shoulders when I was growing up in the church. Call it hypermodesty.

Ask: People sometimes caution against sexualising children. In what way does a focus on modesty itself sexualise children?
Answer: By training children (especially girls) to be especially aware of their clothing and how they look, instead of allowing them just be kids, hypermodesty is actually training kids to think along sexual lines. Instead of preserving innocence, it removes it.

OT Lesson 35 (Amos and Joel)

14 September 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 35 (Amos and Joel)

God Reveals His Secrets to His Prophets

Amos 3; 7–9; Joel 2–3

LDS manual: here

Reading

Now we’re into the minor prophets, Amos and Joel. Like other prophets, they predicted death and destruction for those who didn’t believe them.

Ask: According to these passages in Amos, how will Jehovah / Jesus kill those who don’t obey him?

Amos 1:3 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron:
1:4 But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Benhadad.

4:2 The Lord GOD hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.

Answers: Fire and fishhooks.

By this time, God has had to resort to some pretty drastic measures to get Israel to worship him, including “cleanness of teeth” (or famine), drought, blasting, mildew, worms, pestilence, and the sword.

4:6 And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
4:7 And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered.
4:8 So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
4:9 I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
4:10 I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
4:11 I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

They didn’t love you after all that?

4:12 Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

If God says he wants to meet you, tell him “no thanks”.

There is one interesting thing about Amos, though: Jehovah / Jesus is turning his talent for death and destruction toward social justice issues. In particular, Amos is riled about Israel’s treatment of the poor, and bribery.

5:11 Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.
5:12 For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

For those in a real Gospel Doctrine class: Does anyone mention the poor? If they do, does a class member immediately rush to qualify this with a comment about “the deserving poor”? Does the teacher encourage class members to do anything individually to combat poverty, or are the steps taken by the church (e.g. fast offerings, church welfare) generally seen as sufficient? I’d welcome your answers in comments.

This lesson also looks at Joel. But no one cares about Joel. Seriously.

Joel 1:15 Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

Oh, whatever, Joel. People might do better listening to these guys.

Prophet Three is my favourite.

Main points from this lesson

There’s one scripture that the entire lesson hangs on, and it’s about prophets.

3:7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

Mormons love this scripture because it has the word ‘prophets’ in it, and it says that God is really into them. So let’s investigate prophets in the Mormon universe.

Mormon prophets do not prophesy

Here’s a quote from the real lesson manual.

“When I was a young wife and mother, my husband spent two years in the air force. We lived in military housing on Long Island, New York. While tending our young children, I often visited with neighbors who had come from all over the country. One day as a neighbor and I were talking about our beliefs, she became curious about what was different about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“I told her briefly about the Restoration, and I explained that the restored Church of Jesus Christ has a living prophet today. This really seemed to pique her interest, and she wanted to know what the prophet had said. As I started to tell her about the Doctrine and Covenants and modern revelation, she said, ‘But what has he said lately?’ I told her about general conference and that the Church had a monthly publication with a message from the prophet. Then she got really interested. I was so embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t read the current message. She concluded our conversation by saying, ‘You mean you have a living prophet and you don’t know what he said?’ ” ( Janette Hales Beckham, “Sustaining the Living Prophets,” Ensign, May 1996, 84).

This neighbour was onto it, but more to the point: You have a living prophet, and he doesn’t prophesy? When was the last time a Mormon prophet made a prophecy? Presumably that’s part of their job.

Maybe I haven’t been paying attention, but the last time I can remember where an actual prediction was made was in the Proclamation on the Family.

…we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.

I think that if they’re going to say this kind of thing, they should go “full Old Testament”. In particular, they should specify the kind of calamities. Flood? Fire? Famine? Fishhooks?

It’s fishhooks, isn’t it?

So great is this tendency to avoid saying anything official, that even books by the current president of the church carry a disclaimer! Check out the front of A Prophet’s Voice by Thomas Monson:

It’s called A Prophet’s Voice, but the views “do not necessarily represent the position of the Church”? Whose voice would be considered authoritative, if not the prophet’s? Talk about having it both ways.

If there really were prophets, they would have far more responsibility than they take.

Let’s say you’re one of the Twelve Apostles. That presumably means you have the Holy Ghost — a member of the Godhead — with you all the time. You are also “in constant touch with Him who created this earth and knows the world from beginning to end.”

Ask: What problems would you be capable of solving, with that kind of access to the creator of the universe?

  • Advance scientific knowledge
  • Use information about the human body to eliminate disease
  • Warn people about upcoming life-threatening events, like tsunamis, earthquakes, or hurricanes. People could use this information to save lives, carry out timely evacuation, and help with coordination of resources
  • Foresee the consequences of policy decisions, and communicate them

Ask: What do Mormon prophets actually do?

See, earthquake prediction is one thing, but that quote is really good, too. I like how it all begins with W.

If a god actually exists, and he speaks to people, then those people have some kind of responsibility to use that knowledge to do something besides promote their scammy religion-business. That they don’t do this speaks to either

  • their lack of prophetic knowledge, or
  • God’s lack of concern for the welfare of his children.

“We do not know.”

Okay, so for whatever reason, Mormon prophets don’t seem to be leap-frogging scientists in advancing human knowledge. But maybe this is unrealistic. Maybe prophets don’t involve themselves in temporal matters, just spiritual. But if that’s the case, they seem equally inept in answering spiritual questions.

Activity: Go to the corpus of General Conference talks and search for “do not know”

Ask: What kinds of things do LDS leaders say they “do not know” about? Here’s my list:

• Why do bad things happen to good people?

Why does a just God allow bad things to happen, especially to good people? Why are those who are righteous and in the Lord’s service not immune from such tragedies?

• Why did Eve’s sin result in sexism?

Now, Virginia, you call attention to the statement in the scriptures that Adam should rule over Eve. You ask why this is so. I do not know.

• What will be some of the effects of the Iraq War of 2003–2011? How will that affect the church?

Great forces have been mobilized and will continue to be. Political alliances are being forged. We do not know how long this conflict will last. We do not know what it will cost in lives and treasure. We do not know the manner in which it will be carried out. It could impact the work of the Church in various ways.

• When’s Jesus coming back?

We do not know the precise time of the Second Coming of the Savior.

• Can you tell us anything about science, Book of Mormon archeology, or anything about conflicts between religion and science?

I do not know the details of the organization of matter into the beautiful world we live in.
I do not understand the intricacies of the Atonement, how the Savior’s sacrifice can cleanse all repentant people, or how the Savior could suffer “the pain of all men”.
I do not know where the city of Zarahemla was, as referred to in the Book of Mormon.
I do not know why my beliefs sometimes conflict with assumed scientific or secular knowledge.

Gee, what a shame there’s no way you could find these things out. With a prophet or something.

Even more tellingly, a knowledge of the Atonement seems outside their grasp.

For fuck’s sake, guys, this is the foundational doctrine of Christianity. You guys are professional Christianity-explainers. This is the one thing you should be clear on. And yet, you simply “do not know” how this is supposed to work. Is sin a real thing, and you have to use a sin-transfer-omatron? Or does God see Jesus suffer, and say, “Okay, that makes me feel better about all this. I can stand to have a relationship with the humans again”? They simply don’t know. And they seem satisfied with not knowing.

Read this text from a PBS interview with Jeffrey Holland about race and the priesthood. How many times does he say “we don’t know” why African-American men were denied the priesthood?

“One clear-cut position is that the folklore must never be perpetuated. … I have to concede to my earlier colleagues. … They, I’m sure, in their own way, were doing the best they knew to give shape to [the policy], to give context for it, to give even history to it. All I can say is however well intended the explanations were, I think almost all of them were inadequate and/or wrong.
… It probably would have been advantageous to say nothing, to say we just don’t know, and, [as] with many religious matters, whatever was being done was done on the basis of faith at that time. But some explanations were given and had been given for a lot of years. … At the very least, there should be no effort to perpetuate those efforts to explain why that doctrine existed. I think, to the extent that I know anything about it, as one of the newer and younger ones to come along, … we simply do not know why that practice, that policy, that doctrine was in place…
[when asked to specify the folklore] Well, some of the folklore that you must be referring to are suggestions that there were decisions made in the pre-mortal councils where someone had not been as decisive in their loyalty to a Gospel plan or the procedures on earth or what was to unfold in mortality, and that therefore that opportunity and mortality was compromised. I really don’t know a lot of the details of those, because fortunately I’ve been able to live in the period where we’re not expressing or teaching them, but I think that’s the one I grew up hearing the most, was that it was something to do with the pre-mortal councils. …
But I think that’s the part that must never be taught until anybody knows a lot more than I know. … We just don’t know, in the historical context of the time, why it was practiced. …That’s my principal [concern], is that we don’t perpetuate explanations about things we don’t know. …We don’t pretend that something wasn’t taught or practice wasn’t pursued for whatever reason. But I think we can be unequivocal and we can be declarative in our current literature, in books that we reproduce, in teachings that go forward, whatever, that from this time forward, from 1978 forward, we can make sure that nothing of that is declared. That may be where we still need to make sure that we’re absolutely dutiful, that we put [a] careful eye of scrutiny on anything from earlier writings and teachings, just [to] make sure that that’s not perpetuated in the present. That’s the least, I think, of our current responsibilities on that topic. … “

It’s good to admit when you don’t know something. However, it’s strange that the Lord who “doeth nothing but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” leaves those prophets with such embarrassing omissions.

Another: Why was God, who knew Joseph Smith was going to be killed, so fuzzy on who his successor should be? Isn’t that something that should have been revealed, so as to prevent the arising of splinter movements?

They want to promote themselves as sources of divine knowledge, but when it comes down to it, they peep, “We don’t know.” I want to repeat this: not only is religon no better than random chance at coming up with answers to temporal questions, it’s equally inept at coming up with answers for things in its own domain.

This leads us to an inexorable conclusion:

Having a prophet is a stupid and unreliable method of getting truth.

Let’s say you’re a god. You have a lot of spirit children (that’s us humans), and you want them to live with you for eternity. You’ve also decided that those who aren’t with you either have to live forever in Outer Darkness, or in varying degrees of separation from their eternal family. You know, for some reason. So this is serious stuff.

You’ve also decided, for some reason, that a key criterion for their salvation is whether they believe in you.

Let me just stop here and say that this is really odd. Why would belief be the key criterion? For an imaginary god, this would matter, since lack of belief kills imaginary gods. But for a real god, it wouldn’t matter whether people believed in her or not.

But anyway, you want to make sure that as many of your spirit children as possible believe in you. How would you go about this?

  • Appear to a large number of people, in some way that is easily verifiable.
  • Appear to one guy in one place, who no one is going to believe.

If you chose number two, you’ve chosen the least effective method, and the one also chosen by Jehovah / Jesus.

Why wouldn’t God try to communicate his existence as unambiguously as possible? Does he not want to be believed? Remember — the eternal salvation of his spirit children is on the line. Why is he being so cagey about verifying his existence? Why would he take the risk of making himself look like one man’s delusion?

The answer that Mormons typically give is faith. God doesn’t prove that he exists because he wants us to have faith in him (for some reason). Here’s LDS apologist Daniel Peterson with a representative quote:

Likewise, if God were to reveal himself directly and conclusively, he would destroy our freedom, so overwhelming would that revelation be.

Destroy our freedom! Gosh! That’s why he has to make his existence seem ambiguous. In fact, he could take it one step farther, and make himself as unbelievable as possible, in order to find those who have truly been able to bypass the rational mind and rely on faith 100%. (Which would explain several things about the LDS Church.)

But this is poppycock. When God was supposed to have appeared so unambiguously to Moses, did that destroy Moses’ agency? Did God appearing to Joseph Smith destroy his agency? Of course not. If God can appear to one person without destroying their agency, he can appear to multiple people in a verifiable way without destroying their agency. Or he could appear to everyone. Again, the salvation of billions is hanging in the balance.

Then believers try to have it two ways. On the one hand, they say, “God refuses to prove his existence because that would destroy agency.” On the other, they play up the resiliant nature of skepticism and doubt: “You could show people the Golden Plates, and they still wouldn’t believe you!” Which is it?

There is no reason for a god to work this way. There is, however, a very good reason for a person to work this way: pretending to be a prophet gives you a certain credibility among the credulous. Many people have made lucrative careers out of pretending to have God’s phone number.

Fortunately, the LDS Church is dropping the whole cumbersome prophet thing, and transitioning to using arguments from professional apologists, sending out PR flacks to deal with the media, and releasing carefully-worded statements via the First Quorum of the Newsroom.

Additional teaching ideas

No technology without the Restoration?

Mormons are happy to use technology when it benefits them. However, in this lesson the manual takes it a step farther, and claims that technological progress was explicitly designed to further the LDS Church.

You may want to read the following statement from Elder Joseph Fielding Smith to help class members understand the great benefit of these inventions in performing the work of the Lord:

“I maintain that had there been no restoration of the gospel, and no organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there would have been no radio; there would have been no airplane, and there would not have been the wonderful discoveries in medicine, chemistry, electricity, and the many other things wherein the world has been benefited by such discoveries. Under such conditions these blessings would have been withheld, for they belong to the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times of which the restoration of the gospel and the organization of the Church constitute the central point, from which radiates the Spirit of the Lord throughout the world. The inspiration of the Lord has gone out and takes hold of the minds of men, though they know it not, and they are directed by the Lord. In this manner he brings them into his service that his purposes and his righteousness, in due time, may be supreme on the earth.
“ . . . I do not believe for one moment that these discoveries have come by chance, or that they have come because of superior intelligence possessed by men today over those who lived in ages that are past. They have come and are coming because the time is ripe, because the Lord has willed it, and because he has poured out his Spirit on all flesh” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1926, 117).

In other words, technological advancements happen, not because people think, work, experiment, and struggle through the creative process, but because some Bronze-age Hebrew tribal deity twiddles their brains without them knowing, and — whaddaya know! — airplanes and Internets. This man — who never created anything but silly explanations — takes everything people have made, and attributes it to his myth. What a sad trivialisation of human achievement.

But then let’s remember that this is a guy who typically underestimated the power of human thinking.

We will never get a man into space. This Earth is man’s sphere and it was never intended that he should get away from it.
The moon is a superior planet to the Earth and it was never intended that man should go there. You can write it down in your books that this will never happen.
Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith at Stake Conference in Honolulu, May 14, 1961

And this is why Mormons like to say that television, radio, and the Internet were actually invented by God to spread the Mormon gospel.

“…100 years ago, people still traveled by horse and buggy. The age of the telephone and electricity was just dawning. There was no air travel, no E-mail, no fax machines, no Internet. There has been an explosion of secular knowledge. I believe that God has opened up these treasures of intelligence to enhance His purposes on the earth.”

If God (and not Al Gore) really did invent the Internet, maybe he should have thought again. The Internet is a factor in the demise of religions worldwide.

Ask: How has the Internet helped you in your deconversion?
Possible answers:

  • By making information possible, especially information about the real history of the church
  • By helping to form alternative communities with different interests, making the church community less appealing
  • By connecting us with people who offer support when we’re faced with the loss of our families and social group as a result of deconversion
  • By facilitating scientific knowledge through allowing collaboration

We are living in a time when more information is more available than ever before. Tellingly, the church has not benefitted from it.

Are we as concerned about poverty as Amos is?

Many of us used to donate to the LDS Church through tithing and fast offerings. If you are no longer donating to the church, have you taken any compensatory steps to alleviate poverty through your own giving?

Atheists are sometimes criticised for donating less to charities. This may be skewed, if religions automatically qualify as charities just for promoting a religion, whether they actually help anyone or not (which is the case in Australia) . But we could all be doing more than we do.

Here are some lists of secular charities:

Atheist Foundation of Australia
FreeThoughtPedia

When I stopped paying the church, and dumped my World Vision kid, I decided that I wanted to contribute to secular charities instead. My list skews a bit Australian; yours can reflect where you live.

Do you have worthy causes others should know about? Put them in comments.

OT Lesson 34 (Hosea)

7 September 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 34 (Hosea)

“I Will Betroth Thee unto Me in Righteousness”

Hosea 1–3; 11; 13–14

LDS manual: here

Reading

This chapter is about Hosea. We’ve seen some unusual behaviour from prophets — genocide, hacking oxen to pieces, bear maulings — but this is one of the stranger ones. To hear Hosea’s side of the story, Jehovah / Jesus commanded him to take a wife that would be adulterous. Her name was Gomer. A popular name, apparently.

1:2 The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.
1:3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.

I have to say something here. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. But in this book, plus Job and Jonah recently, we now see that God’s going through a phase where he’s just dicking with people.

Anyway, having married an adulterous wife, Hosea writes an entire book of the Bible excoriating her for having lovers, threatening Israel with death and destruction, and asking the Lord to exact a series of frighteningly specific punishments on his wife and Israel alike.

The picture I’m getting here is that Hosea’s wife had an affair, and he handled it monumentally badly.

Presently, Hosea’s wife has children, and Hosea gives creative names to these adorable tots:

  • a baby son Jezreel, so named because God was going to kill lots of people to avenge the killings of Jezreel. Charming!
  • a baby daughter Loruhamah, which means ‘unloved’. What a cutie!
  • a baby son, Loammi, which means ‘not my people’. Aw, he’s adorable.

Apart from the psychological damage inflicted by these names, the main problem is that it’s just impossible to find personalised baby stuff for them.

Then Hosea tells his kids that their mom is a whore, and that he’s not her husband.

2:2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;
2:3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.

I hate when people bring the kids into it.

And, in an extra twisted touch, he’s not going to be merciful to them because they are — as they say — brothel sprouts.

2:4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.

Way to go, Dad. Ironically, this lesson is being taught on Father’s Day all over Australia.

At this point, the text becomes a little unclear, but it appears from commentaries I’ve read that Hosea goes and buys his wife back from someone. In other words, she’s become a prostitute.

3:1 Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.
3:2 So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:

Read the following scriptures with the class. What does the Lord threaten to do to those who don’t worship him?

9:14 Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
9:15 All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters.
9:16 Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.

10:13 Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.
10:14 Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Betharbel in the day of battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children.
10:15 So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.

13:7 Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them:
13:8 I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.

13:15 Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the wind of the LORD shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up: he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.
13:16 Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.

This has implications for the abortion debate.

No word on whether counselling was effective for Hosea and Gomer.

Main points for this lesson

Similitudes

Why in the world would Jehovah / Jesus command one of his prophets to marry an unfaithful wife? The real manual has it that J/J was getting Hosea to act out an allegory, in which the adultery of Hosea’s wife was meant to symbolise Israel’s apostasy.

Explain that in addition to these smaller comparisons, Hosea also used extended comparisons, which are called metaphors or similitudes (similitude is the word used in the scriptures). The book of Hosea contains several comparisons to help us understand the relationship between Jesus Christ and his people.

Hosea’s quite a short book, but within its pages are some of the ugliest metaphors in scripture. If you’re an ex-member who no longer worships the Abrahamic god, the LDS Church offers these metaphors to help you understand your situation.

  • Worship is like sex
  • People who turn from worshipping God (read: ex-Mormons) are like prostitutes
  • Believers are like property that God has bought, and owns
  • Believers are like animals

Let’s look at each of these.

Worship is like sex

The Book of Hosea hinges on a metaphor that worship is like sex. There’s an explicit connection drawn between idolatry and adultery.

Ask the class: How is worshipping God like having sex with God?
Endure several minutes of uncomfortable silence. Then answer the question yourself:

You see, the church is like a woman. And God gets mad if she has sex with anyone else. But ‘sex’ is standing in for ‘worship’. Which makes you wonder if the sex around God’s place is really boring, like Sacrament Meeting, or if the worship is actually pretty hot and steamy. I’m guessing the former.

As for me, it’s bad enough that I was born into a church that expected me to worship the Abrahamic god for the whole of my life. Now I find that it’s meant to have a sexual element, too. This seems unimaginably creepy, as though not only my mind but also my body was required, and no need for my consent. I suppose the worship / sex thing is an apt comparison, after all.

People who turn from worshipping God are like prostitutes

Let’s consider the central metaphor of this reading, and see what its implications are supposed to be:

  • Hosea’s wife Gomer has left her husband, gone after other men, and become a prostitute.
  • She explicitly represents Israel, which has stopped believing in Jehovah / Jesus.
  • If we are not faithful to God (the church, Hosea, what have you), then we are acting in the role of Gomer.

In other words, insofar as we are intended to connect this metaphor to a modern situation, people who have left the church are cast as the whore. I don’t really see any other way that this could have been intended.

And let’s be clear: I don’t think most Mormons feel this way about ex-members. Yet the church offers this “whoredom” metaphor as a way of thinking about people who have stopped worshipping. Is this respectful? Is it accurate?

I don’t actually have a problem with sex work, so I don’t mind this kind of criticism. Maybe it’s apt: I’ve left someone who was pimping me (the church), and gone into business for myself. However, if I went around saying that Mormons were like prostitutes, not only would I evoke howls of protest from Mormons, I’d probably have ex-Mormons telling me I was going a bit far. Yet here we have the reverse situation, posted not by some weirdo on Facebook, but proclaimed openly in every Mormon Sunday School class this week, using the church’s official teaching materials.

One thing the church has always done very poorly is understanding the motivations of those who leave. Over and over again, we have lessons about the Dangers of Personal Apostasy, and it seems to be beyond their comprehension that people might have good reasons for leaving.

  • The claims of the church turn out not to be true.
  • Prophets do not act with anything resembling inspiration.
  • The church teaches a white-washed and distorted version of its history.
  • The church acts less like a church and more like a corporation that works to advance conservative political views.

I think these are good reasons to leave, but what we hear in church is that ex-Mormons leave because “they were offended” or “they wanted to sin”. These rather trivial reasons are given as a way of invalidating the experience of ex-Mormons.

Check out Jen’s great list of terms she once used to describe ex-Mos.

Inactive, struggling with faith, lost testimony, fell away, gave in to temptation, led away, allowed Satan to have influence, lost the spirit, not truly committed, not truly converted, not obedient enough, having a crisis of faith, didn’t endure to the end, didn’t keep covenants, relied too much in the understanding of man, proud, offended, wandered off the path, focusing on the wrong priorities, complacent, selfish, not worthy, chose to sin, blinded by arrogance.

I hear ya, Jen. I had the same list.

If any readers want to find out why people really leave, you couldn’t do much better than this video from John Dehlin, on why people leave the LDS Church.

Believers are like property that God has bought, and owns

In chapter 3, Hosea buys his wife back. The real lesson manual has this to say:

In Hosea 3:1–2, the husband purchased his wife from her lover (you may want to explain that in Old Testament cultures, women were often considered property and could be bought or sold)…. In what sense has Jesus Christ “bought” each of us? (See 1 Peter 1:18–19.) What does Christ require of us in return?

Hey, we can do better than 1 Peter. Let’s turn to 1 Corinthians 6.

1 Cor 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

That’s right — you don’t belong to yourself, and you don’t (or shouldn’t) have control over your own body or your own self. And why not? Because someone allegedly bought you two thousand years ago.

This gives the game away. Christianity purports to set us free, but in actual fact, Christianity requires slaves, and the Bible says this over and over. And if you try to escape, then some very graphic punishments will ensue.

I think slavery is wrong, no matter who the owner is, and I don’t allow myself to be owned. Throwing off religion has served as a reclamation of my freedom and personal autonomy.

Believers are like animals

Finally, the lesson manual offers another — equally unappealing — metaphor.
Another similitude often used in the scriptures to describe the relationship between the Lord and his people is the master-animal relationship. This similitude is used briefly in Hosea 11:4. What do we learn about the Lord’s feelings for his people through this comparison?

Let’s see.

11:3 I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them.
11:4 I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them.

Ask: What do we learn about the Lord’s feelings for his people through this comparison?
Answer: God feels like he gets to lead his people around like an animal. But he feeds them and takes off the yoke — after putting it on, of course.

Believers are often characterised as sheep, but in this scripture, they’re beasts of burden. And as I remember the things I used to do in the church:

  • attend hours of meetings
  • work at my callings
  • clean church buildings and temples
  • support activities
  • promise to give everything I had to the church

I think the ‘burden’ idea is appropriate. Church activity is a burden, and an unnecessary one at that. It ties us down with bands, and then claims that they’re “bands of love”. But we all have better things to do with our time than prop up an organisation that exists for its own perpetuation.

To conclude this section, the real lesson manual asks:

How do the similitudes in the book of Hosea help you understand how the Savior feels about you?

Oh, they speak volumes, I can tell you.

Additional teaching ideas

Is God loving and merciful?

The real lesson manual thinks so. In fact, this one point is the entire purpose of the lesson:

Purpose: To help class members understand that the Lord is loving and merciful and will forgive us when we repent and return to him.

But the god of the book of Hosea shows a distinct lack of these qualities.

Ask: Imagine someone said to you, “If you don’t worship me, I’ll kill you. But if you do worship me, I’ll be kind to you.” Would you consider that person loving or merciful?

Answer: This is not love or mercy. If someone is kind to me, then that’s nice. It’s kind of the minimum that I would expect from a normal person. But this does not mean that they’re worthy of worship. And adding threats into the equation just compounds the unacceptability.

The book of Hosea shows us that Christianity is an abusive and immoral religion. It’s abusive to require someone to worship or love you, and it’s immoral to someone them with death and destruction for refusing to love you enough. Jehovah / Jesus is a violent asshole, and worshipping him is a bad deal. Don’t accept it.

OT Lesson 33 (Jonah, Micah)

31 August 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 33 (Jonah, Micah)

Sharing the Gospel with the World

Jonah 1–4; Micah 2; 4–7

LDS manual: here

Reading

After reading Kings and Chronicles, this reading marks a strange transition. Before, if there was a group of people that didn’t believe in Jehovah / Jesus — well, you’d just kill them and their children, on down to the fourth generation. But now it seems that there’s been a shift. Now, you’re supposed to use convincement and persuadance. Religions do mellow out sometimes.

This story concerns Jonah, who was told to go to Ninevah and preach.

Jonah 1:1 Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
1:2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

Myself, I would have told Jehovah / Jesus to go do his own dirty work.

And that raises an interesting point: Why would a god need humans to go around and tell other people about him? For that matter, why wouldn’t he be able to impart knowledge about himself to everyone directly? If he can appear to one person and communicate his will, why can’t he do the same thing to a big group of people all at the same time? It would be a lot less ambiguous, more clear, and above all, verifiable. Why only one person? Why the secrecy? Why does god go to all the trouble of making himself look like the delusional beliefs of one person?

Oh… unless gods don’t actually exist, and prophets are either crazy people (which we’ll see later in the OT) or liars (as in our day).

Anyway, Jonah legs it, and gets onto a ship.

1:3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

God, not to be so easily brushed off, tries to kill everyone on the ship.

1:4 But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.

The sailors ask Jonah what his deal is.

1:8 Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?
1:9 And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.
1:10 Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him. Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.

Notice their reaction: “You’ve got Yahweh pissed at us? We’re fucked!” They know he’s the most ruthless and cruel god ever invented. Maybe they read Judges.

So they toss him overboard, and Jonah is fish food.

1:15 So they look up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging.
1:16 Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the LORD, and made vows.
1:17 Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah prays for deliverance from his ichthyic prison.

2:1 Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly,

And the prayer must have gone something like this:

Well, whatever was said, God tickled the fish, and — baaarf! — out onto the beach came Jonah and tons of ambergris in a big sludgy pile.

2:10 And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

Jonah’s arrival apparently made quite an impression on the Ninevites, who immediately converted.

3:5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
3:6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
3:7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:

The king’s like, “We’d better not give any food or water to anyone, even our animals, because even they’ve been very sinful.” Apparently, that’s how evil this place was. Even the sheep are evil. Like this one:

So the Lord repents:

3:10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

I don’t have a problem with God repenting. That’s probably just a semantic thing. What’s more worrying is that God didn’t seem to know that the people would repent. Or perhaps that he would need humans to feel a certain way about him or do certain things for him. I don’t know what being a god is like, but I hope I’d be above all that.

Anyway, Jonah’s ticked at God’s backtracking. He can’t believe God wouldn’t destroy everyone like Jonah said God would. Has Jehovah / Jesus not been paying attention to the last few lessons? So God messes with his head for a while, in an attempt to make him feel better.

4:6 And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
4:7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.

The lesson also has some material from Micah, including some isolated out-of-context scriptures about temples and mountains, which Mormons really like.

Micah 4:1 But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.

How could that not be about Salt Lake City, amirite?

4:2 And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

That sounds kind of nice. Why, it sounds a bit like religious pluralism.

4:5 For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.

But wait — that didn’t last long. Later on in that very same chapter, we see that Jehovah / Jesus intends for the Saints to beat many people in pieces, and take their substance.

4:13 Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the LORD, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.

Not surprisingly, the real lesson manual stresses the threshing — you know, like harvesting souls! — and downplays the money-making angle and all the beating.

What can we learn from Micah 4:11–13 about the latter-day destiny of Israel? (In the ancient world, oxen were often used to thresh grain. They would walk over the grain, separating the chaff from the kernel. The chaff was blown away and the kernel saved. The nations that oppose Zion will be gathered as sheaves and then be threshed by Israel.) How might this separation of the chaff from the kernel be compared to latter-day Israel’s responsibility to do missionary work throughout the world? (See D&C 29:7; 33:5–7.)

Whatever, real manual. I still think it’s insulting to speak of unbelievers like they’re worthless chaff. But that’s the mindset you need, if you going to tell people they’re living wrong, and you’re doing it right. I can’t believe I did that for two years.

Main points for this lesson

Can someone survive in a giant fish?

Jonah is obviously just a silly story, at least to sensible people with a grip on reality. The story hardly seems worth debunking — except that people do believe it, even modern Christians. Answers in Genesis, Christian Answers, and (rather more ambivalently) Catholic Answers all maintain that this was a real — or possibly real — event, though they do give a nod to the story’s implausibility.

Their reasoning?

  • God can do anything, I mean, c’mon!
  • One guy survived a whale-swallowing once.

This latter point refers to James Bartley, who purportedly (and dubiously) survived an internship in a sperm whale in 1891. Cecil Adams of the Straight Dope has addressed this myth, and calls it a yarn.

I’m not a marine biologist, but apparently this graphic is, so have a look.

So Jonah’s story is probably just a big fish story. Oh, sure, believers will invoke miracles, but there’s no limit to what some people will swallow.

Yep, he would have.

Sharing the gospel

The real lesson manual stresses the importance of going on a mission, by which I mean “lays on the blame”.

Through his prophets, the Lord has repeatedly commanded every worthy, able young man to serve a full-time mission. He has also encouraged senior couples to serve as full-time missionaries if they are able. (See the additional teaching ideas.) What are some reasons why some able young men and senior couples choose not to serve missions? (Lack of commitment and faith, unworthiness, unwillingness to leave the comforts of home and family, fear of what might be expected of them.) What can we learn from the story of Jonah that can help us be more valiant in obeying the Lord and sharing the gospel?

Wow, check that out. They’re really piling on the guilt and recrimination.

Ask: Why are church members unwilling to consider that there might be some good reasons not to go on a mission?
Answer: Missionising is a source of converts and income for the church. But perhaps more importantly, getting someone on a mission is a way of getting the missionary to say they believe something over and over again. This is important for self-indoctrination, which I think has become the real purpose of a mission. From a Redditor:

As a former non-mormon missionary myself, I know how this stuff works. Eventually, I noticed that their missionaries are young guys, 18-22, very formative years, away from home, away from their support structure, continually sent out to get ridiculed or told to bugger off, and continually being rejected. Then I realized it’s not actually about converting anyone (Though that’s a nice bonus if it happens), it’s actually about sticking these kids in a position where they’re continually attacked, and their only support comes from the church. It’s a very intensive form of indoctrination.

And not just that — it’s also to put them in a situation where they have to become amateur apologists; make up plausible-sounding explanations for all the contradictions and absurdities that they’ll be faced with in the mission field. It’s this “skill” that will have a lot of smart people doing mental gymnastics through years of church activity. Sometimes the smarter they are, the better they get at apologetics, and the longer they stay.

While we’re on Reddit threads, this one says something I’ve been thinking for a while. Every once in a while, a discussion will come up about whether the Mormon Church is a cult. I don’t like that much. Maybe it’s a leftover reaction — I always used to bridle at this kind of talk in my churchy days. Or maybe it’s because the term cult isn’t well-defined, so it’s an unhelpful question. What’s culty, and what’s not? Isn’t a cult just an unpopular religion? Christianity itself used to be a Jewish cult. And so on.

I don’t know if the LDS Church is a cult or not, but I will say one thing: An LDS mission is really really far on the culty scale, whichever one you’re using. Take for instance the BITE model. I don’t know if it’s a well-accepted model in psychology, so let’s just take this as interesting.

The BITE model looks at four aspects of control, all of which happen on a mission:

• Behaviour Control
Your behaviour is regulated, with a set schedule and all your time accounted for. What you wear, who you’re with, what you do — all these things are handed to you. On a foreign mission, your passport is taken from you, first thing as a matter of course.
• Information Control
Your sources of input are restricted, including news, TV, music, and books. Communication with family and friends is limited to letters and rare phone calls.
• Thought Control
You report deviant thoughts, or have them reported by your companion. Your name and identity are replaced — you’re “Elder” or “Sister” now, and your first name never gets used.
• Emotional Control
You’re encouraged to control your thoughts using hymns. Doubt is wrong. The organisation can’t fail, but you can fail the organisation. Happiness only comes by diligence and right thinking.

Ask: How many items on the BITE list did you experience on your mission, if you served one?
If you did not, what reasons did people offer for your not doing so? How did members feel that this reflected on your character?

For Mormon culture, the mission is what anthropologists might refer to as a ‘manhood ritual‘ (which may be why they don’t seem as interested in women serving missions). Like other initiation rituals, it gives access to opportunities within the community, as well as access to high-status females. But in my view, the LDS mission is designed to turn missionaries into lifelong devoted members — and maybe convert a few people on the side.

Additional teaching ideas

Micah’s criticism of prophets who prophecy for money

One of the problems in Micah’s day was prophets who get paid.

Micah 3:11 The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.

Truly this scripture was written for our day.

On that note, did you know that bishops used to get a cut of the tithing, at least in 1902?

That’s just one of the revelations that’s come to light in the latest data dump of all the Church Handbooks. Yes, they’ve been leaked, and you can read them here. This is a big deal because they’re the rules by which the church is conducted, and regular members aren’t allowed to read them.

Casting lots

The ancient Hebrews had big problems with divination, but in Jonah, it seems that casting lots is a pretty reliable way of getting answers.

Jonah 1:7 And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.

And that’s not the first time casting lots worked. Remember when Johnathan ate some honey when he wasn’t supposed to? Saul cast lots to find that he’d done the deed.

1 Samuel 14:41 Therefore Saul said unto the LORD God of Israel, Give a perfect lot. And Saul and Jonathan were taken: but the people escaped.
14:42 And Saul said, Cast lots between me and Jonathan my son. And Jonathan was taken.
14:43 Then Saul said to Jonathan, Tell me what thou hast done. And Jonathan told him, and said, I did but taste a little honey with the end of the rod that was in mine hand, and, lo, I must die.
14:44 And Saul answered, God do so and more also: for thou shalt surely die, Jonathan.

It sure worked then. And in fact, the Urim and Thummim (contra Joseph Smith) probably functioned like dice. One wonders why, then, the Brethren disapprove of gambling.

But hey, why use lots when you can use Answer Me Jesus™? Go ahead, try asking him yourself!

OT Lesson 32 (Job)

24 August 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 32 (Job)

“I Know That My Redeemer Liveth”

Job 1–2; 13; 19; 27; 42

LDS manual: here

Reading

Whereas in earlier books, Jehovah-worship has been fairly straightforward — worship Yahweh or be killed — now we’re seeing a more nuanced and thoughtful view. Job is a guy who endures undeserved suffering, and leads us to ask why. It’s almost as though someone noticed: hey, the consequences of faith are not always unambiguously good. Why, it’s almost as though there’s no correlation between what a person is like, and how their life goes! Almost as though God didn’t exist! How is that possible?

According to the real lesson manual, the Book of Job is intended:

To help class members develop strength to face adversity by trusting the Lord, building their testimonies of him, and maintaining personal integrity.

That’s right! You’re facing adversity because God has a plan for you! Trust him.

Isn’t that what people always say? You’re going through adversity, and it’s hard to understand, but hang in there! It’ll all make sense one day! God has a plan!

Unfortunately if you’re Job, God’s plan is to kill your family, afflict you with boils, and then bully you afterward by bragging about how great he is. But I’m getting ahead of the story.

Read the following story, or play the following video for the class.

Job was a pretty good guy, just the kind God would have been into.

1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
1:2 And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.
1:3 His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.

But one day God and Satan are hanging out for some reason, and they make a bet whether Job really loves god or not.

1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
1:7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
1:8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
1:9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
1:10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
1:11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
1:12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

So Job’s children, his animals, and his servants are all killed, and Job is understandably upset.

1:20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,
1:21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
1:22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

That’s not enough for God, though.

2:1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.
2:2 And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
2:3 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.

Yes, here God admits that he destroyed Job for no reason.

Here’s Dan Barker commentary, using the Book of Job to show how morally compromised believers are. (Thanks to David.)

Anyway, Satan responds:

2:4 And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
2:5 But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
2:6 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.
2:7 So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

I really like how this commenter breaks it down.

What Satan is baiting God with is the prospect of receiving unearned worship and adulation. You see, if God is good, and people worship him for being good, then his ego-strokes only come because he’s living up to his end of the bargain. But Satan tempted God with the chance to receive Job’s adulation and praise regardless of his actions. God wanted to be able to throw all morality to the winds and be literally demonic in the cruelty of his deeds, and still be worshiipped as the ‘perfect, just God’. He doesn’t merely want unearned praise–he wants his worshippers to be so mindless, so utterly servile they will praise him to the skies even as he tortures them. Or, as Job put it, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.”

The Book of Job makes it plainly, indisputably, blatantly clear that God cannot be trusted as a Protector, and that he has no ethics at all.

Job’s wife isn’t much help.

2:9 Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.
2:10 But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.
2:11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.

Job’s friends aren’t sympathetic, and they hurl accusations against Job in various ways. Eliphaz the Temanite, unaware of God’s bet with Satan, thinks God is just dandy.

4:7 Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?

Bildad the Shuhite also argues that God is fair.

8:3 Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?

Zophar the Naamathite wishes that God would come down and shut Job’s wicked mouth. If only he knew about the bet.

11:4 For thou hast said, My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in thine eyes.
11:5 But oh that God would speak, and open his lips against thee;
11:6 And that he would shew thee the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is! Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.

They all have the same idea: that God is good, and Job must have done something terrible to merit such suffering. But we, having read Chapters 1 and 2, know that — nope — God’s a shit.

Job seems to have figured it out.

9:22 This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.

He blasts his friends.

16:2 I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.
19:19 All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me.

Nevertheless, he maintains his faith in a god who is allowing him to be destroyed.

13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
13:16 He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him.

Another guy, Elihu, joins the discussion and keeps up the pressure on Job.

34:12 Yea, surely God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert judgment.

God must be feeling pretty stupid at this point. All these men are extolling God’s righteousness to Job, who is suffering undeserved torment at God’s hands — again — for no good reason.

So at this point, God breaks in, and to me he sounds rather defensive. His answer, in summary is: “Who the fuck are you? I ain’t gotta explain jack shit to you.” He taunts everyone for not being as strong or as mighty as him.

38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
38:2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
38:3 Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
38:5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
38:6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
40:1 Moreover the LORD answered Job, and said,
40:2 Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it.

God also likes his arms and his voice, so — you know — good self-esteem there, God.

40:9 Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?

God also makes reference to many mythical animals he invented, like unicorns, behemoth, and leviathan.

39:10 Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?
40:15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
41:1 Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?

Read more in “God refuses to explain his cruelty” in the Brick Testament

And now we get to the ending, and I think it’s the worst way to end this story. God gives Job more sheep, camels, and oxen — and more children! So everything’s all right, right? He won’t miss his dead children now!

42:10 And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.
42:11 Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold.
42:12 So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.
42:13 He had also seven sons and three daughters.

Click to go through to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

I have to confess that, besides the way we’re supposed to act like there’s no harm done, I really hate this ending. The Book of Job is an exploration of why bad things happen to good people, and this is a serious issue for believers. Some people are harmed and never restored. Some people worship Jehovah / Jesus all their lives and never get the goodies. But the Book of Job blows it all by… giving Job the goodies! So what was the lesson here? I thought it was “Worship God, even if you don’t get the goodies.” But no, I was wrong; it appears the lesson is: “Worship God, and eventually you’ll get the goodies!” As far as tacked-on happy endings go, this is up there with the Joad family finding jobs in the movie version of the Grapes of Wrath. It blows the whole thing.

There are lots of ways to deal with adversity — get help from friends or professionals, do things that make you feel better — but this lesson promotes probably the most unhelpful way of dealing with adversity: trust in a cruel and capricious deity.

Main points from the lesson

Satan, and the Problem of Evil

People have always asked: If there’s a good god, why do bad things happen? We could use Epicurus’ formulation:

There’s an entire branch of theology devoted to this called theodicy.

Follow through to Jesus and Mo

I’m ashamed to say that, maybe because I hadn’t suffered much in my life, the Problem of Evil was never a problem for me in my believing days. What, do you want God to run around fixing everyone’s problems? How are we supposed to grow? and so on.

My view changed when I read “The Tale of the Twelve Officers“, who witness a crime, and refuse to stop it. Each officer gives a rationale — more morally callous than the last — that exactly mirrors an excuse believers give for God’s failure to help people, in a way that any of us would do if we could.

It was, of course, sad to hear that Ms. K had been slowly raped and murdered by a common thug over the course of one hour and fifty-five minutes; but when I found out that the ordeal had taken place in plain sight of twelve fully-armed off-duty police officers, who ignored her terrified cries for help, and instead just watched until the act was carried to its gruesome end, I found myself facing a personal crisis. You see, the officers had all been very close friends of mine, but now I found my trust in them shaken to its core. Fortunately, I was able to talk with them afterwards, and ask them how they could have stood by and done nothing when they could so easily have saved Ms. K.

Let’s back up. It was easy to explain evil in the polytheist days: There are good gods and evil gods, and an evil god did it.

It was sort of easy to explain evil in the early monotheist days as well: God did all the good and the bad stuff, and he didn’t really care what you thought. For example, we have these scriptures that reflect the idea that God does everything, good and bad:

Amos 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

But having God do bad stuff conflicted with the notion that he was loving and merciful, and as those latter aspects became more and more important to people, something had to give. So the victim-blaming rationale became popular: You deserved bad things to happen to you because you’d done something bad. But eventually even that answer seemed unsatisfactory to many. A new answer was needed. And now — what a coincidence — just at the time that Bible writers were grappling with the reason for undeserved suffering, they were developing a new character to explain it: Satan. And the new explanation is: God is good, but there’s a devil who messes you up.

Satan hasn’t been a character in the Old Testament until now. Oh, sure, there was a talking snake in the Garden, but he was just a snake. The word satan (Hebrew ‘stn‘) just meant ‘an adversary‘. In the story of Balaam (Numbers 22:22), the angel of the Lord that was meant to turn Balaam away from the king was a ‘satan’. In 1 Samuel 29:4, the Philistines debate whether to help David, lest he be a ‘satan’ to them. The idea of Satan as a adversarial supernatural being appears to be an innovation in the Book of Job. And notice how he’s pretty chummy with God at first, dropping in, chatting, and of course making bets.

Admittedly, the Satan explanation for evil isn’t that much better, because why would God allow an evil being to roam about mucking things up? But at least it absolves God of the direct responsibility for doing evil things. It even allows the semblance of free agency — you have God and Satan; which one are you going to follow?

Satan is an evolved explanation for the Problem of Evil, but one that causes more problems than it solves.

People are better than their god

Elihu taunts Job, asking if he has the audacity to think he’s more righteous than God.

35:1 Elihu spake moreover, and said,
35:2 Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God’s?

My answer is a resounding “yes!” In church, we’re accustomed to hearing how great God is, and how we are nothing, less than the dust of the earth. It’s time to shake that off and realise that the reverse is true. We — all of us — are more moral than God. This should be obvious to anyone who’s been following these lessons, but let’s just have a quick recap.

Ask the class which of these actions they would perform:

  • Condemn humanity to suffering for one couple’s disobedience
  • Drown all but a handful of your children
  • Allow slavery, but be angry when your own people are slaves
  • Kill the firstborn child of a group of people
  • Have all knowledge of medicine and science, but only reveal details of animal sacrifice and furniture building to your chosen people
  • Instruct your people to commit genocide
  • Kill your way out of every problem you created and foresaw
  • Demand first, last, and always, that you be obeyed
  • Know in advance about every atrocity that’s happening or will happen, but do nothing to stop it
  • Condemn some of your children to an eternity of any the following — torture, isolation from family, separation from you — for not believing in you or loving you enough

The god of the Bible is claimed — by his followers, no less — to have done or to do each of these things, and yet instead of hunting him down and purging him from their society like you would do to any human that did them, they somehow account him worthy of worship. It’s really breathtakingly perverse when you think about it.

Check out this blistering litany from Matt Dillahunty to a caller.

You are moral than the god that they forced you to believe, that they’ve conned you into accepting! You don’t believe that I necessarily deserve to go to hell for exercising the “free will” that you think your god gave me. You don’t think that the dictates of a conscience — whether or not somebody believes — is a sufficient justification for eternal torture…. You are better than your god. You are better than your religion. So am I, so is Don, so is damn near everybody on the planet! I wish people would wake up and see this! Stop apologising for this (holds up Bible)! It’s not the Good Book! There’s nothing good about it! All it does is poison minds!

Amen.

Resurrection

In the Old Testament, resurrection was never really on the cards. Job seems to take the prevailing view that people just die, and then nothing happens to them.

7:9 As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.

And yet, in Job, we start to see glimmers of the idea that people will have some kind of existence after death.

19:25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
19:26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:

Christianity is going to need this when it gets invented. Without a wonderful tantalising afterlife to look forward to, this religion lacks something in the motivation department. With Judaism, who cared if you were motivated? It was your ethnic religion, you were born into it, and you’re stuck with it. But for Christianity, which had to attract converts, a nothing sort of afterlife wasn’t going to cut it. And this is why we find Christianity seizing upon such scriptures in a hope for a heaven — an innovation that started right here in Job.

My father died in 2004 or 2005. We’re still not sure which. (No, it’s nothing that mysterious. In his sleep on New Year’s Eve.) It wasn’t funny at the time, but now to me, it is, just a little bit. Sorry, Dad!

Dad’s death was a bit of an earthquake that wrenched a lot of my calcified belief free. Questions of existence and afterlife took on a new urgency. I was the adult now. No older generation acting as a buffer for life’s uncertainties. You’re the next to go. So if I was wrong in my belief, and there was no consciousness after death, I damn well wanted to know. I think this “wanting to know” is probably the beginning of the end of belief for a lot of people. If you’re content to go back to sleep, and hang on to faith — take the blue pill — then you can believe anything forever, be wrong for the whole of your life, and never know it. But if you really want to know… then you can start to investigate a little more stringently. Which I began do to, and I did not like what I found.

At Dad’s gravesite, I found myself speaking aloud this verse from Job:

14:14 If a man die, shall he live again?

My sister, also present, immediately told me, “Yes.” Which is her way. Always cuts straight to the faithful answer. Love her to pieces.

In the weeks and months to come, leading up to my deconversion, I began to realise that this question — do we live after death? — is really the critical question that all the others hang off of. If the answer is yes, then it’s logical to live one way. If the answer is no, it’s logical to live another. You can’t live halfway between.

So it took me a while to answer Job’s question: “If a man die, shall he live again?” And looking at the evidence, I had to admit that the answer was: Probably not. It’s time to admit that we’ve never seen any evidence of anyone coming back from being really truly dead. Oh, sure there’s no shortage of people telling us that heaven is real, and it’s usually people selling books about how heaven is real. But really, all we know is that this life is all we get. And if you’re reading this on a computer, then you’re one of the lucky few for whom life is the easiest, the longest, and the most luxurious it’s ever been for any group of people on earth. Yes, there are struggles and challenges. But there’s food and sex and art and music and people.

It’s all happening right now, and it’s too precious to waste in a church that promises that if you give them your money and obedience now, you can live in heaven when you die. Make your life better today.

Additional teaching ideas

Good things in the Bible

Withholding food and clothing from the poor is specifically mentioned as iniquity several times in Job.

31:16 If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail;
31:17 Or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof;
31:18 (For from my youth he was brought up with me, as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother’s womb;)
31:19 If I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering;
31:20 If his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep;
31:21 If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate:
31:22 Then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone.

Science in the Bible

Bible adherents like to quote Job for this tidbit of scientific wisdom:

26:7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

See? The earth hangs on nothing! Proof that the Bible is accurate in its knowledge of the universe.

Except that just four verses later, heaven has pillars:

26:11 The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof.

So far, no efforts have been made on the part of Christian scientists to find the pillars of heaven, because everyone knows that’s metaphorical.

Also metaphorical in Job is the idea that the sky is some kind of strong glassy barrier.

37:18 Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking glass?

And that men lactate.

21:23 One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
21:24 His breasts are full of milk, and his bones are moistened with marrow
21:25 And another dieth in the bitterness of his soul, and never eateth with pleasure.

Enjoy that mental image, and I’ll see you next week.

OT Lesson 31 (Proverbs & Ecclesiastes)

17 August 2014 / / 1 Comment

“Happy Is the Man That Findeth Wisdom”

Proverbs and Ecclesiastes

LDS manual: here

Reading

We’re now into the so-called “wisdom books”, allegedly written by Solomon. And I have to say: after the terrible books of Chronicles and Kings, the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are a breath of fresh air. In fact, there’s a lot of great stuff in here.

Wisdom

Proverbs is very big on wisdom. Some representative verses:

Prov. 4:7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
8:11 For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.
16:16 How much better is it to get wisdom than gold! and to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver!

And yet I gather that you’re supposed to get wisdom by magical means, and not by book larnin’.

Ecc. 12:12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

Rather predictably, the real lesson manual tries to draw the tired distinction between being ‘learned’ and being ‘wise’

The books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes emphasize the importance of wisdom. What differences are there between being learned and being wise?

inviting members to note that smart people don’t always stay in the church. No, they don’t, do they? Why is that?

Not only that, but the writer of Proverbs misplaces where knowledge is to be found.

1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

The fear of the Lord is not the beginning of wisdom, not even if we define fear as respect, awe, and so on. More often than not, theism and supernaturalism work against scientific inquiry. By giving easy but unproductive answers like ‘godiddit’

and by discouraging questions

supernaturalism makes gaining knowledge just about as difficult as possible.

Mercy

It’s good to be merciful.

Prov. 11:17 The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.
25:21 If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:
25:22 For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the LORD shall reward thee.

And yet wise kings are supposed to run wicked people over, apparently.

Prov. 20:26 A wise king scattereth the wicked, and bringeth the wheel over them.

Fairness

Prov. 11:1 A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.

Restraint

Prov. 11:12 He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbour: but a man of understanding holdeth his peace.
15:1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.
17:28 Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.

Kindness to animals

Prov. 12:10 A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.

Keeping things in perspective

It’s good to have your priorities in place.

Prov. 13:7 There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.

And even an allusion to the kind of oppositional approach that makes the scientific method work.

Prov. 27:17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

Yes, there’s a lot of good stuff in Proverbs. And yet, some of the worst advice in the Bible is right here. Let’s get to it.

Main ideas for this lesson

Trust in the Lord

I already had a go at this scripture in an earlier lesson.

Prov. 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

And to put a finer point on it:

Prov. 28:26 He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered.

To review: it’s just about the worst scripture around because it’s designed to get you to ignore your own thoughts and motivations. The only reason someone would get you to stop thinking for yourself is that they know their bullshit system won’t benefit from you doing so.

But there’s a further problem with ‘trusting in the Lord with all your heart’: In order to do this, you’d have to assume that your understanding of what ‘the Lord’ wants can’t be wrong or mistaken. Are you infallible?

Click to go through to ‘Jesus and Mo‘.

What people really mean by “trust the Lord” is “trust yourself”.

And when you have a god who isn’t directly and clearly available for comment, guess who’s always willing to step in and interpret the divine will? People. This is a system that’s just begging for abuse.

Indoctrination of children

Here’s another one of the most evil verses in the Bible:

Prov. 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

How much indoctrination this verse must be responsible for! How carefully parents teach religious dogma to believing children, adding layer on top of layer for years and years.

It’s particularly ironic then, that Christians sometimes accuse gay people of trying to “convert” people to a gay lifestyle — that is, of doing something that gay people aren’t doing, but which Christians themselves explicitly are.
Children believe grown-ups. That’s probably good; by having parents transmit ideas to us via language, we can get a head start, and know more than we could have learned in a lifetime. But bad ideas do get in with the good, and they can be horribly difficult to root out. As Richard Dawkins says in The God Delusion:

Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival: the analogue of steering by the moon for a moth. But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility. The inevitable by-product is vulnerability to infection by mind viruses. (pg. 176)

What’s the answer?
• Use skepticism to give children good ways of detecting good ideas from baloney. Again, I really like Maybe Yes, Maybe No by Dan Barker.
• Let children form their own ideas and their own identity.

• Resist the efforts of people who want to indoctrinate other people’s kids, as with school prayer.

Child abuse

The book of Proverbs tells us that it’s okay to beat your kids. It starts by saying that it’s good to beat stupid people…

Prov. 10:13 In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found: but a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding.

continues by saying that you should “chasten” children with a rod…

Prov. 13:24 He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.

…and you shouldn’t stop beating them just because they cry.

Prov. 19:18 Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.

In fact, “correcting” (or beating) a child with a rod will drive the foolishness out of them.

Prov. 22:15 Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.

Once in my Mormon days, I taught this lesson in Sunday School. I’ve always been against beating or spanking children — even as a TBM — because I think children should have consequences for their actions, but physical punishment is not a good consequence. Consequences should be related somehow to the behaviour.

So I read these proverbs in class, and invited comments. A few people tried to tone it down a bit. One inventive fellow said that the “rod” wasn’t really a rod — it was more like a “book”. You know, like the “stick of Joseph”! I asked in response if we were meant to beat children with books, perhaps? He demurred.

Another member said that the “rod” wasn’t meant to be interpreted as beating. He commented that a shepherd doesn’t use his rod to beat sheep; he just puts it in their way so they won’t go to the wrong place. I don’t know how he was so knowledgable about sheep.

My response was to pull out Proverbs 23:13, which explicitly discusses using the rod for beating:

Prov. 23:13 Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
23:14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.

I then paused, looked at the silent class, and said, “The Bible says to beat your kids. The Bible is wrong. Don’t beat your kids.”

Looking back, I can’t believe I said that! But then I suppose I had some support from Gordon B. Hinckley, who said in a Conference talk:

In terms of physical abuse, I have never accepted the principle of “spare the rod and spoil the child.” I will be forever grateful for a father who never laid a hand in anger upon his children. Somehow he had the wonderful talent to let them know what was expected of them and to give them encouragement in achieving it. I am persuaded that violent fathers produce violent sons. I am satisfied that such punishment in most instances does more damage than good. Children don’t need beating. They need love and encouragement. They need fathers to whom they can look with respect rather than fear.

Credit where credit is due; he got this right. That he had to repudiate the Bible to get this right speaks volumes against the Bible.

There are a lot of Christians who do take Proverbs seriously, and who do beat their children. Currently the most ghoulish of these is Michael and Debi Pearl of the No Greater Joy Ministry. Their book “To Train Up a Child” (change.org petition here) gives some rather chilling suggestions:

Never reward delayed obedience by reversing the sentence. And, unless all else fails, don’t drag him to the place of cleansing. Part of his training is to come submissively. However, if you are just beginning to institute training on an already rebellious child, who runs from discipline and is too incoherent to listen, then use whatever force is necessary to bring him to bay. If you have to sit on him to spank him then do not hesitate. And hold him there until he is surrendered. Prove that you are bigger, tougher, more patiently enduring and are unmoved by his wailing. Defeat him totally. Accept no conditions for surrender. No compromise. You are to rule over him as a benevolent sovereign. Your word is final.

Their preferred instruments are rulers, switches, and lengths of PVC piping. Their methods have been implicated in the deaths of three children. And all perfectly biblical.

Additional teaching ideas

Women

The writer of Proverbs didn’t like strange women much, which seems to rule out Solomon as an author.

Prov. 5:3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:,
5:4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
5:5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

Also:

Prov. 9:13 A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing.
9:14 For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city,
9:15 To call passengers who go right on their ways:
9:16 Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him,
9:17 Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
9:18 But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.

No one had a problem with sex workers in the earlier parts of the OT, but now they do.

Prov. 23:27 For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
23:28 She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.

Personal note: This next scripture embarrassed my mother terribly.

Prov. 5:18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
5:19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

The Bible doesn’t comment on men without discretion.

Prov. 11:22 As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.

Mean women suck; no similar proverb on mean men.

Prov. 21:9 It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.

Or as rendered in LOLcat:

See also:

Prov. 21:19 It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.

Ecclesiastes, and how to live

The book of Ecclesiastes is for anyone who’s ever felt world-weary and tired of the whole game of living. The word ‘ecclesiastes’ is a Greek rendering of a Hebrew word meaning ‘the leader of a congregation‘, and is usually rendered ‘preacher’, but this preacher is less like Billy Graham, and more like Jim Casy from the Grapes of Wrath. He’s at a distance from faith, so he seems a bit more analytical about it.

Tell me if this isn’t something you’ve felt before: We strive for progress and learning, but sometimes we wonder what it’s all for. Of course, gaining knowledge is a higher-quality decision that sitting around and being stupid, but we all die, whether we’re wise or foolish. This struggle is (I think) especially keen for me as a skeptic, when delusion seems to be so very prevalent and hard to fight.

Well, the writer of Ecclesiastes has you covered. He’s thought it all before. See, there really is nothing new under the sun.

Ecc. 2:14 The wise man’s eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all.
2:15 Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity.
2:16 For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.
3:20 All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
I think of all that I work for, and how one day I’ll have to leave it to someone else. And who will they be?
2:18 Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.
2:19 And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.

The preacher’s answer is that we should have enjoyment while we’re alive.

Ecc. 3:22 Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?
5:18 Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion.
8:15 Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.

But there’s something that missing here. Yes, it’s important to enjoy living. I’d also add that it’s important to leave something for the next generation of humans. Even if I’m not around anymore, by contributing a little bit to human knowledge, maybe I can have some ongoing influence for good.

There’s another thing the preacher seems not to understand. He seems to think wisdom is not within anyone’s grasp.

7:23 All this have I proved by wisdom: I said, I will be wise; but it was far from me.
7:24 That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out?
8:17 Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea farther; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.

But we do have one very good way for finding out about things that are far off, deep, or even very complicated: science. By abandoning the idea of supernatural intervention and using methodological naturalism, we can observe things about our universe, and make testable hypotheses that tell us about their workings and their origins.

There’s one more verse in Ecclesiastes that I like.

9:10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

Like much of the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes doesn’t have much to say about the afterlife. And this is kind of strange to me. Many Christians have asked me, “If you don’t believe in an afterlife, that what’s the point of doing anything at all?” From now on, my answer will be, “Read Ecclesiastes! Its author seems to find life rather worthwhile, without the presumptions of an afterlife.” Okay, so there might be more to add to it, but the basics are there: You only get one life. Enjoy it. Do what you do with enthusiasm, including eating, drinking, and being merry, because you only get one time around.

See you next time.

OT Lesson 30 (Temple)

10 August 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 30 (Temple)

“Come to the House of the Lord”

2 Chronicles 29–30; 32; 34

LDS manual: here

Reading

This lesson focuses on temple worship, and just as it’s hard to see the point of the very repetitive endowment ceremony, so it is with this week’s reading. Basically, it’s still Jehovah / Jesus being okay with all kinds of murder and warfare, but punishing people for the relatively trivial act of not being sufficiently worshipful to him.

He kills king Jehoram by what must have been an agonising illness.

21:14 Behold, with a great plague will the LORD smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods:
21:15 And thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day.
…
21:19 And it came to pass, that in process of time, after the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness: so he died of sore diseases. And his people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers.

He gives up on his followers.

24:20 And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the LORD, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the LORD, he hath also forsaken you.

Here’s an illustrative example. King Amaziah is considered one of the good kings.

25:1 Amaziah was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem.
25:2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, but not with a perfect heart.

He kills ten thousand people. Then he throws ten thousand more over a cliff, and Jehovah doesn’t bat an eye.

25:11 And Amaziah strengthened himself, and led forth his people, and went to the valley of salt, and smote of the children of Seir ten thousand.
25:12 And other ten thousand left alive did the children of Judah carry away captive, and brought them unto the top of the rock, and cast them down from the top of the rock, that they all were broken in pieces.

Wait — if it’s not the murders, what is it that gets Jehovah’s dander up? Burning incense to another god. Now God’s all like: whoa, whoa!

25:14 Now it came to pass, after that Amaziah was come from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought the gods of the children of Seir, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense unto them.
25:15 Wherefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against Amaziah, and he sent unto him a prophet, which said unto him, Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people, which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand?
25:16 And it came to pass, as he talked with him, that the king said unto him, Art thou made of the king’s counsel? forbear; why shouldest thou be smitten? Then the prophet forbare, and said, I know that God hath determined to destroy thee, because thou hast done this, and hast not hearkened unto my counsel.

Could we please please please remember this when Christians say that God is all about love love love, and how he loves everybody? According to the Bible, he’s really all about self-preservation, humans be damned.

Uzziah in chapter 26:3–21 is really the same story. He kills loads of people, and God helps him do it.

26:3 Sixteen years old was Uzziah when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Jecoliah of Jerusalem.
26:4 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah did.
26:5 And he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God: and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him to prosper.
26:6 And he went forth and warred against the Philistines, and brake down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built cities about Ashdod, and among the Philistines.
26:7 And God helped him against the Philistines, and against the Arabians that dwelt in Gurbaal, and the Mehunims.

But then he burns incense — and this time it’s to the right god, but in the wrong way! — and God gives him leprosy.

26:16 But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for he transgressed against the LORD his God, and went into the temple of the LORD to burn incense upon the altar of incense.
26:17 And Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him fourscore priests of the LORD, that were valiant men:
26:18 And they withstood Uzziah the king, and said unto him, It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto the LORD, but to the priests the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn incense: go out of the sanctuary; for thou hast trespassed; neither shall it be for thine honour from the LORD God.
26:19 Then Uzziah was wroth, and had a censer in his hand to burn incense: and while he was wroth with the priests, the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the LORD, from beside the incense altar.
26:20 And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was leprous in his forehead, and they thrust him out from thence; yea, himself hasted also to go out, because the LORD had smitten him.
26:21 And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several house, being a leper; for he was cut off from the house of the LORD: and Jotham his son was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land.

It seems like nothing good happens to people who fall in with this god. Best advised to stay away.

But the real story for this lesson is the rebuilding of the temple by king Hezekiah. He repairs the place…

29:1 Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.
29:2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done.
29:3 He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the LORD, and repaired them.

and restarts temple worship. Sounds like everyone’s really stoked about it.

30:25 And all the congregation of Judah, with the priests and the Levites, and all the congregation that came out of Israel, and the strangers that came out of the land of Israel, and that dwelt in Judah, rejoiced.
30:26 So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there was not the like in Jerusalem.

So stoked that they engage in the destruction of the religious traditions of their neighbours, which seems to be the inevitable consequence of religious zeal.

31:1 Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the children of Israel returned, every man to his possession, into their own cities.

Later, Josiah does the same thing, but he engages in human sacrifice. (Wait — do competing priests count as ‘human’?) Rather chillingly, the Bible refers to this as an act of ‘cleansing’.

34:1 Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years.
34:2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left.
34:3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.
34:4 And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.
34:5 And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.

Main points from this lesson

“A credit card with the Lord”

The real lesson manual contains an excerpt of a Gordon B. Hinckley in which he compares a credit card and a temple recommend.

“I hold before you two credit cards. Most of you are familiar with cards such as these.

“The first is a bank credit card. It permits me to secure merchandise on credit and then pay for my purchases at one time. It is a valuable thing and something to be safeguarded. If stolen and dishonestly used, it could cause me great loss and perhaps considerable embarrassment. In accepting it from my bank, I enter into a contract and become bound by obligations and agreements. In accepting the card, I agree to meet the conditions under which it was issued.

“It is issued for one year only and must be reissued each year if I am to enjoy the privileges afforded by it. It is not really mine. The bank retains ownership. If I fail in my required performance, then the bank may shut off the credit and repossess the card.

“The other card which I have is what we call a temple recommend. It represents a credit card with the Lord, making available to me many of His greatest gifts. The bank card is concerned with things of the world, the recommend with things of God.”

If it was his own credit card, it was probably one of those black ones that comes with a concierge. Bonus points to GBH for using an attention-holding prop, but this is a comparison he should have avoided. For one thing, the explicit money/temple link is very appropriate and very unflattering. For another, credit cards are way better.

Top ten ways a credit card is better than a temple recommend

10. Credit cards can be used to purchase goods and services. A temple recommend can only be used to get into a long and boring religious service, or in Utah County, to get out of a speeding ticket (see You know you were born in Utah County… #10).

9. Both charge high rates of interest. But at least you can avoid paying credit card fees if you pay in time. Tithing is not as easy to avoid.

8. A credit card can put you in debt to a multi-national corporation that will keep you paying all you have for the rest of your life — but only if you use it very foolishly. With a temple recommend, this is its normal and intended purpose.

7. Some credit cards include frequent flyer points. Temple recommends just include creepy old guys touching you (but at least now you’re not naked).

6. Credit cards: rugged plastic with a cool hologram. Temple recommends: flimsy paper with a barcode.

5. Banks are required to let you know the rules surrounding the use of your credit cards. Members of the church do not have access to the Church Handbook of Instructions (leaked copies: Scan Text).

4. You can use credit cards to see more than one movie.

3. When they change the terms of your credit card, they have to send you a notice. When they change the temple ceremony, they do it quietly, and never speak a word about it. Then people claim that the earlier terms never existed.

2. Credit cards renew pretty much automatically. Temple recommends require you to have a tedious interview every year with some guy about your beliefs, associations, and actions.

1. If you cut up your credit card, no one comes to repossess your family for eternity.

That last one is the sticking point. Some people would pay anything to be with their family for eternity. And if you think the church has the authority to keep you together — and, more importantly, keep you apart — and this is conditional on temple attendance, AND you have to pay the church to go to the temple… well, it’s pretty clear that this is financial coercion. This isn’t a covenant freely entered into. This is a hostage situation. What the LDS Church does is something close to racketeering. “Nice family; shame if something was to happen to it.” It’s why I say that ‘eternal families’ is the most evil doctrine of the entire LDS Church. Once you think they have your family, there’s nothing you won’t do for them.

What the temple was like for me

I went to the temple for the first time in September 1987, before the 1990 changes. (New name: Titus.) That means I still remember the penalties. It was an odd experience to be there with my Mom and Dad and several other family members, all pantomiming our murders, with our throats slit, and our bowels disemboweled if we were to reveal the tokens and signs. (The penalties used to be even more graphic.) And then walking around in the Celestial Room wearing those odd outfits with my family. I imagine that if I’d gone through on my own, I would have NOPED out of there. However, seeing my family doing the ritual, and them feeling so happy that I’d done it too, went a long way towards reassuring me. As intended, I’m sure.

One thing about my brain that I’ve learned to live with is that I always have a song in my mind. I always have, for as long as I can remember. And the odd thing is that as I go through my day, I’ll find that the song might have lyrics that are somehow fitting to the situation. I can’t help it; I guess my brain is always free-associating. I’ll think: why this song? And then I’ll sort through the lyrics and find a phrase that someone just said or that seems appropriate to what’s happening. For example, when my dear Uncle Richard told me he was going deaf, and how painful this was for him, I noticed that the song on my iBrain during the whole conversation was Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence”. The iBrain can be cruel that way.

This musical tendency made for some interesting musical accompaniments during temple ceremonies. Imagine me, a TBM, believing and trying to have a good temple experience, and this is the song for the entire endowment.

Or this one — a real blast from the 80s.

I still like this song in particular; it’s a good way of looking at groups that stress mental conformity. But at the time, these songs were unwelcome. And I couldn’t seem to stop them. What was it about the temple — or about me — that made these songs come up, and not something more happy and inspiring? Looking back, I think my brain knew more than I did.

As a believer, I always approached the temple in kind of a Zen way: yes, it was repetitive, but maybe there was something to be gained by going through the ritual. And I felt certain that there were deeper things in the temple that could only be understood by going through the ritual over and over. I remember hearing Spencer W. Kimball’s statement (also related by a visitor to this page) that he had only just started to understand the temple. Surely if I just continued and “endured to the end”, I would grasp the great truths at the heart of the endowment.

And then after more years of activity in the church, after years of conference talks, recycling through the same Sunday School lessons a few times, and above all temple sessions, I began to realise that there really wasn’t anything more. The whole process of church activity seemed characterised by a kind of intellectual vapidity that wasn’t just me. It was endemic to a process in which questions had no good way of being answered, and in fact could never really be answered.

By contrast, I was at this time learning about science and skepticism, and I was amazed that there was so much that could be learned about this vast universe through natural means. While the people who used supernatural means were getting it more and more obviously wrong, people doing science were getting it right. Valuing the scientific method was important to my process of rejecting supernaturalism, religion, and mysticism. Without that, I might still be stuck in the same old rituals. The temple might have become my cage.

The real manual asks:

Once we have made these covenants, why is it important that we return to the temple as often as possible?

Ask: Why would the church say it’s important to keep doing session after session?
My answer today is that

  • it’s an investment in time that members will be less willing to dump the more time is invested
  • it’s a way of making the church seem normal and the real world seem less normal, and the longer you do it, the more normal it seems

Got any other ideas? Why would this sleepy ritual become the focal point of Mormon worship? Leave your ideas in comments.

Additional teaching ideas

The return of really old people

We haven’t seen any absurdly superannuated people for a while, but here’s one.

24:15 But Jehoiada waxed old, and was full of days when he died; an hundred and thirty years old was he when he died.

I think attributing great age to someone is just how people say that the person was a great hero. So take a guess whether he was a good guy or a bad guy. Yup, he’s a good guy. If he’d done anything morally questionable, Jehovah / Jesus would have killed him. The Old Testament is kind of like a horror movie in that way.

Joseph Smith taught that animal sacrifice would happen again

Animal sacrifice was a part of temple worship for ancient Judah.

29:32 And the number of the burnt offerings, which the congregation brought, was threescore and ten bullocks, an hundred rams, and two hundred lambs: all these were for a burnt offering to the LORD.
29:33 And the consecrated things were six hundred oxen and three thousand sheep.

That’s a lot of animals.

Unsurprisingly, the real lesson manual says that animals are no longer sacrificed in temples:

Explain that although some of the practices in the temple of ancient Israel were different from what we do in latter-day temples (for example, we do not sacrifice animals or burn candles and incense in latter-day temples), the purposes of ancient temples and latter-day temples are the same: to prepare us to come into the presence of the Lord and be like him.

However, rather surprisingly, Joseph Smith taught that animal sacrifice would return as part of the restitution of all things.

Words of Oliver B. Huntington: I heard the Prophet reply to the question: “Will there ever be any more offering of sheep and heifers and bullocks upon altars, as used to be required of Israel?”
He said: “Yes, there will; for there were never any rites, ordinances of laws in the priesthood of any gospel dispensation upon this earth but what will have to be finished and perfected in this last dispensation of time — the dispensation of all dispensations.”

Now that would be interesting! No one would be sleeping through an endowment, I assure you. But what about all that carpet?

It shouldn’t need to be said that putting your sins onto animals and killing them instead is an evasion of responsibility. And killing an animal or a person to show a god that you really really like him or that you’re very grateful is unnecessary, if he’s all-knowing.

* * *

Sorry there aren’t any funny memes or video for this lesson; Kings and Chronicles are tough chapters. But we’re getting into some good stuff. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are next! And then it’s all the psycho minor prophets. You’re going to love ’em. See you next week!

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