Radio Free Mormon: 253: Demythologizing Mormonism 

Read the truth above.

Yep. Is that the Bednar talk where he told the audience that they should have "the faith not to be healed" when talking about blessings of healing that fail to heal? It's like the church is now saying: "Remember how for generations we hyped up the super special powers of the priesthood and made a big deal about priesthood blessings of healing, including countless faith-promoting anecdotes of miraculous healings that could never be fact-checked? Well forget all that because now we're telling you that the priesthood power is even much, much greater than that because...get this...(hushed tone for dramatic effect)...the priesthood has the power to not heal. That's right. THE. POWER. TO. NOT. HEAL!! And the power to not heal is the greatest power of all because, you know, test o' faith shee-yit and stuff."

Other good examples include the "But If Not" talk by Dennis E. Simmons April 2004 conference and of course Robert Gay's April 2020 conference talk wherein he recounts that one time a gnat was miraculously revived.

@@KidFreshie Whoa! I'm going to have to look those up. I once swatted a fly out of the air and it fell lifeless to the floor. I was sure that it was dead. But then as I was looking for a paper towel to pick up the fly carcass, the fly twitched and then flew off like nothing had happened. I was shouting at it to come back. "Hey, fly! Come back! Did you see a light? Did you go through a tunnel and have a life review? Tell me all about it!" But it seemed to still be harboring a grudge for some reason and refused to come back. Flies can be so petty that way. Maybe there was a spillover effect and the fly also benefited from the miracle mentioned in Gay's talk. Gnats and flies are quite small, so it could be that priesthood blessing energy is always too much for just one little flying insect and therefore has to radiate out into the cosmos, pursuant to which random flying insects are revived without being specifically blessed by the priesthood. (I'm auditioning for a Mormon apologist job, if you were wondering about why I'm developing a new "priesthood energy radiation velocity effect" theory (aka the PERVE theory), which I think will become more significant than the catalyst theory in future Mormon apologetics. ;o)

@@KidFreshie That story is really straining at a gnat. :-)

@@TEAM__POSEID0N The secret to killing flies is to spray them with water since they can’t fly from the weight of the water. When it drops step on it. Then get paper towel to dispose of it

Brilliant!

"So, basically, when the board of directors of a multinational beer brewing company sits around the table deliberating on a proposed new global marketing campaign featuring cute puppies, hot girls and buff boys -- and reach a consensus to approve the new campaign -- they've experienced the process of receiving revelation" So long as they open and close with a prayer in the name of Jesus!

AMEN

Need 4: Bill Reel

@@ascalon132 agreed! Plus Dan Vogel and BYP

There are two many. We need a mountain range.

The Tanners

Yep. Paul H. Dunn and "Dunnisms" didn't just happen spontaneously. Spinning fairy tales, fables and myths and passing them off as historical events has been a feature of Mormonism from day one. I still remember a time when the "Apostles" were always implying that they had seen Jesus, without ever expressly saying that they had. It was always that "I've had an experience that is too sacred to talk about" gimmick. For a brief time, they almost had me going with that. "Hmmm. Did they actually see Jesus?" But then logic kicked in. "Wait a minute! Your whole deal as a so-called "Apostle" is that you are supposed to be a special forkin' witness of Christ, but here you are implying that you may have seen (i.e. 'witnessed') him, but you can't talk about it (seeing Christ) because it's too sacred to talk about. How does that make any sense?" Taking their "too sacred to talk about" logic and applying it in the same way, there should be no New Testament. Everything in the New Testament should have been "too sacred to talk about".

@@TEAM__POSEID0N I discovered the last 2 years that my dad, who died in 1995, told a faith promoting story or 2 that are false. I think this church turns good men into liars fir the faith. It was devastating for me. If they truly saw Jesus, they would shout it from the roof tops.

See Groupthink.

I think from now on, anytime I see Henry Eyring, I'm going to be obsessed with the task of figuring out which one of his eyes is the Stanford eye and which one is the Harvard eye. I can't imagine that each eye could be both a Stanford eye and a Harvard eye at the same time. I don't think that would be possible, even taking into account the phenomenon of quantum entanglement.

Ooooh Satan was T H I S close to victory.

Brilliant.

Well done!

Haha! Right up there with Weird Alma material.

That's a great book. It provided context and a personal reality-based perspective from Anne Eliza that was completely missing from anything that could be found in official church literature. Her discussions of the Kirtland banking scam, the handcart scam and the story about Bishop Snow (probably a relative of Lorenzo), who had a young man castrated because he was the boyfriend of a young girl that Bishop Snow wanted to take as one his own plural wives, among other topics, were so fascinating that I couldn't put the book down until I had read it cover to cover.

BYs handcart scam was horrible and disgusting. Anne Eliza was very right and the book DEVILS GATE by David Roberts details and substantiates the entire shameful tragedy. She also outlines how he conned people to enrich himself and his deplorable wife hoarding, many of whom he didn’t support. She writes about how he sent less favored wives to work on his farm and the hardships there. There’s an episode in IN SACRED LONELINESS when one of JSs widows who’d married BY was sent there and said the work broke her health and nearly killed her. He was a horrible person.

Yes. By the time this Eyring guy was finished talking, the only message that came through clearly was that he had credentials from Stanford and Harvard. It also seems like he was getting choked up remembering how he once saw a bunch of guys in suits sitting around a table trying to reach an agreement on something (never specified), but ultimately failing to do so and how he was so impressed that the leader of the group decided that they could talk about it later. I guess that's the same way I get choked up when me and my friends can't decide whether to get a bucket of extra crispy fried chicken or original recipe fried chicken and, failing to reach agreement, decide to go get cheeseburgers instead. Beautiful moments like that. But that's not the important thing. The important thing is that Eyring was at Stanford...and Harvard or, more specifically, at Harvard and Stanford and he sees things through Harvard and Stanford eyes. I still can't believe that I have Mormon relatives who hang on every word these guys say. Mind. Boggled.

@@TEAM__POSEID0N Egotism is a helluva drug.

Has he read a few good books? We know he’s no dodo.

He referred to that so much that I suspect that, if asked about Earring's talk two days later, the only thing that the majority of the people in the audience would remember from it would have been that they learned that Earring was a Harvard and Stanford man and was an insider rubbing elbows with the upper echelons of Church leadership since a time even before his Uncle Spencer became the prophet.

Oh did he mention he was a tenured professor at Stanford? 🙄 And they enjoyed it. Then he went to REXBURG? Didn’t say they enjoyed it.

He's like the Blubbermeister of the General Authorities. He basically was on the verge of a huge blubbery, tears-streaming-down-the-face emotional breakdown...caused by recalling a time when a bunch of guys in suits decided to postpone a decision about something. He wasn't choked up about the subject matter of the meeting. (That was probably just something like whether the frequency of structural safety checks should be increased with regard to the oxen statuary holding up baptismal fonts in LDS temples.) Nope. What got him emotional was that the leader of the group was willing to postpone making a final decision because he sensed that the guy who was frowning and scowling and rolling his eyes during the meeting was maybe not yet convinced that the contract for structural safety inspections should go to the prophet's son-in-law...or something like that.

Through the app*

Using his real name?

TBH, I think we have to stop bending over backward to give these clowns the benefit of the doubt for things like this. As Earring reminded everyone at least half a dozen times, he's a "Harvard and Stanford" man. He's obviously describing in two instances a very, very ordinary decision-making process that takes place daily in thousands (millions?) of institutions and organizations around the world on a daily basis and trying to gaslight his audiences (with his I'm-on-the-verge-of-sobbing-uncontrollably shtick) into thinking that such mundane forms of organizational decision making constitute divine revelation that must be heeded by all who hear of it. A bunch of guys equivalent to a board of directors try to reach an agreement on some unspecified matter, the CEO equivalent guy (Harold B. Lee in the story) senses that one of the directors (i.e. "apostles") is not fully on board and decides to postpone the decision to give that one guy some time to get with the program. And Earring thinks that this is super special, remarkable and indicative of divine influence? So remarkable and inspirational that his voice starts to shake as a way of getting his TBM audience to anticipate a full-on blubbering melt-down of the type that can only be evidence of the Holy Ghost or something, I guess. Then his next example of "divine revelation" is a process that consists of a Chief Executive Officer (Nelson) being advised by his vice-presidents (Oaks and Eyring) of a decision that needs to be made, pursuant to which the CEO...remarkably and miraculously...makes a decision. OMG! I can just hear hosts of angels singing hallelujah in celebration of the magnificence of this majestic demonstration of divine revelation in action. "Well, you presented me with options A, B and C and...hmmm....I guess...uhm...maybe...I think...A...yeah that's it. Option A sounds right. I figure that's what Jesus wants." Cue the heavenly choir again. I can't remember whether he said that he was looking at such decision-making phenomena through his "Harvard and Stanford" eyes the whole time or whether he said he turned off those eyes and was looking at them through his "I'm a General Authority and I have to sell this collective illusion as best I can" eyes.

@@TEAM__POSEID0N I don't disagree with any of your logic. I just think old Hal is a real believer. Real believers in what they are doing are less conscientious in their speach. They often reveal how the sausage is made because they are blissfully unaware of anybody having a problem with it. And from the begining of the mormon movement, it has always been a council game. Joseph Smith took council from everyone and called it revelation. The pattern within tbeir leadership has just continued, but Joseph incorporated the process in the D&C. I am not claiming that the process itself is right or wrong, but that it has always been that way. It was the church correlated material that either initied the continual MT. Sinai method of revelation or at least allowed the members to perpetuate the myth by their ommission and silence. Theologically speaking, Biblical prophets usuallu only have one or two theophanies in their life time. The LORD often goes silent for the remainder of their ministry until they are closer to death. This is why Moses and Elijah felt forsaken and wanted to quit. The LORD delivered the message and intent to them and every "Thus saith Jehovah" after that was either paraphrasing from their theophany or discerned by a mystical method of divination, such as casting lots or using the breast plate and urim and thummim. A bunch of yes/no questions was they old method of revelation for God's will, and it seems it is the same today. Again, those in charge of teaching the doctrine in the church (i.e general authorites who reserve that right to themselves) had a duty to dismiss the overestimatiom of their offices, but they either allowed it to continue, added to it, or out right lied in order to set themselves up as some great ones. This is the sin of priestcraft they are guilty of.

@@TEAM__POSEID0N you need to start a RU-vid channel. You have very interesting and well-structured thoughts and arguments.

@@KidFreshie Thank you. That's encouraging to hear. Quite different from the typical response I get from TBM family and friends when I (much more diplomatically) try to just lightly broach conversations on these types of topics. I get frowns and eye-rolls, as I see their arms and hands twitching while they fight an unconscious urge to use their fingers to plug their ears. They're all perpetually disappointed (yet "tolerant") with regard to the fact that I don't believe in their church or church leaders. But they literally NEVER want to have an adult two-way conversation about it.

@@vegadog3053 I can see what you're saying, especially with regard to things that are more on the administrative policy side. There is certainly a tradition there and some "revelations" produced by Joseph Smith as to how deliberative bodies are to be established and operated for church governance matters. But with regard to the core doctrinal and theological features of Mormonism, especially in the Joseph Smith era, the relevant revelations were mainly always presented by the Church as things that came by way of revelation from God to only Joseph Smith (and much of that through a peepstone, as was often referenced by contemporaries who didn't think getting revelation through a seer stone was odd the way that modern people do). In the D&C, most of the "revelations" are introduced specifically as "revelation given to Joseph Smith the Prophet" or words to similar effect. There is no indication that such revelations were the result of any council deliberations and consensus. The wording is mostly "thus saith the Lord" type stuff. It literally is NEVER anything like, "pursuant to calm and prayerful deliberation and discussion, and advice and counsel, the President and [whatever body or council it is] has determined that the Lord [fill in the rest with whatever "revelation" is desired]...." The latter would be a more honest portrayal of how church governance and policy-making has actually transpired for much of its history, particularly after Joseph Smith's death. But for much of the Church's history, this is not the way that "revelations" or the process of receiving "revelation" has been portrayed to the general membership. There is not the slightest hint in most D&C "revelations" that the revelation was anything other than clear and complete announcements and pronouncements delivered by God directly to Joseph Smith (whether through a seer stone or directly into his mind) by divine and miraculous means and that ONLY Joseph Smith was authorized to receive such divine revelation for the church as a whole. (There is even a significant episode in Mormon history where Edward Partridge tried to insist that, in his office as bishop, his right to make administrative decisions under the purview of a bishop's authority (the scope of which had previously been "revealed" by Joseph Smith) superseded anything Joseph Smith could insist upon in the relevant matter. Joseph Smith's response was to get busy with "new revelations" and stories about visitations from Bible celebrities (such as Peter, James and John) which, completely coincidentally of course, surprisingly resulted in Joseph Smith having a form of higher priesthood that was so high in terms of authority that a lowly little bishop could not challenge it anymore. There were no deliberations, consultations or council consensus type "revelations" mentioned in most of the D&C. Nothing like that was implicated or mentioned, for example, when Joseph Smith got a "revelation" about the need to go on a silver-and-gold treasure hunt in Salem. Nothing like that was implicated or mentioned when Joseph Smith got a "revelation" about how to use a handshake test to detect demons or devils pretending to be angels. The same can be said about pretty much all of the most important "revelations" contained in the Doctrine & Covenants.