Originally Posted by BYU71 (Post 211032)

I am only talking about my lifes experiences here. I was in my youth a long time ago. I had a great childhood by the way. It couldn't have been better.

However, I was taught under in the era when Bruce McConkies Mormon Doctrine was considered by many as scripture.

People who smoked and drank were evil people. People who broke the Sabbath were evil people. People who gambled were evil people. Miracles happened for those that had the truth. If a miracle happened for someone else, it was done by Satan in order to deceive those that had the truth.

If I talk to my parents now, they say, who taught you that stuff???? LOL I tell them they and the church did it jointly.


It is amazing to me the number of people who claim the church never taught birth control was evil. Heck, it was a late as the sixties.

I know Tex, I know. Chalk this up as one more of your "this board speaks evil of the brethern" totals even though I haven't said one thing bad about the brethern.

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski (Post 211038)

Gotcha.

When my buddy got married in the early 80's, his bishop told the new couple "Remember: in this church we don't practice birth control, we practice self-control." His FIL (another bishop) told them that the bishop was nuts.

Originally Posted by Adam (Post 210962)

I don't get the difference between the collective lack of faith of the individuals who make up the church and a lack of faith of the church membership. Please explain.

When you say the Church is not lacking in miracles what do you mean? Lets take just the ones listed in Mormon 9:24:

Cast out devils: when is the last recorded instance of an Apostle casting out a devil?

Speaking with a new tongue: The last instance I have found was Karl Maser's baptism in Germany during the pioneer period--and this was only a couple of guys walking home. Anything more recent, more public?

Taking up serpents/drinking deadly things: WTF? Moroni was seriously wacked. Anyone want to defend these beauties?

Healing the sick: Nibley said this was the only gift present in the church because it was the only one we asked for. The statistics don't bear this out. If there was any significant presence of the miracle of healing in the church, you should see a significantly greater recovery rate for Mormons when stricken by illness. But you can't find this statistic. The fact that a person is a member and gets a priesthood blessing is not correlated with a greater recovery rate from cancer, AIDS, diabetes, etc. Medical miracles happen every day, among Mormons and among Jews and among atheists. We have no greater miracle here than any other group.

In contrast to the blind apologists here, I agree with Moroni (who I saw us) and said:

"I speak unto you as if ye were present and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ has shown you unto me, and I know your doing."

[We love that part because it speaks of a mighty miracle--seeing the future--but then we ignore what Moroni saw as he tells us next.]

I know that ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions, and all manner of iniquities; and your churches, yea, even every one, have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts. For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than you love the poor and needy, the sick and the afflicted. O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God?"

Notice that last bit. He is talking to those who have polluted the holy church of God. I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the holy church of God.

And the specific charge in v. 39 is talking directly to the members of the church in Utah County: "Why do you adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not."

Still there is not a homeless shelter in Utah County and a dozen (give or take a few) homeless people freeze to death every winter in Utah County. http://foodandcare.org/index.php

Originally Posted by MikeWaters (Post 211039)

That bishop was teaching false-doctrine. He was giving his opinion as doctrine.

Originally Posted by UtahDan (Post 211059)

The thing I think is so interesting about this thread is that neither Adam, nor I nor anyone else has remotely insinuated that the paucity of miracles is evidence that the church isn't true or that the power to perform miracles doesn't exist within the church. Rather, the idea that is at least being talked about is that perhaps we are under some condemnation as a people and need to live the gospel better to have that condemnation removed.

The responses to this, however, don't even seem to admit this possibility. If someone had said "and therefore the church isn't true" I could understand why many would say "that isn't one of the possibilities in my mind." But that isn't what is being said. That some would, at least apparently, say that it is not possible that we are under condemnation or that we need to be more righteous shows me that they are committed to a world view were all is well and right rather than being committed to any particular ideology or teaching.

I think I have said that Adam has been a bit off the deep end on somethings lately, but in this case it seems to to me that he is doing no more than likening the scriptures to himself which is what we are taught to do. This brings the charge of a vain love affair with intellect. This seems to make his point that for some that anything they haven't heard over the pulpit cannot be.

So at the end of the say, the answer to the question for many is that the question is moot. You can't ask whether we have gone astray at all because it isn't possible. I wonder if there were Nephites and Lamanites who thought the same thing.

Originally Posted by BYU71 (Post 211066)

I can buy everythng you just said. Perhaps we have gone astray and perhaps we are the most righteous in history. Arguments could be made either way and I doubt a person on either side of the argument is more in tune or out of tune.

Perhaps two hundred years from now Saints will be asking how come we don't have miracles like TV, the internet, BYU football and all those miracles the saints in the late 1900's and early 2000's got. Are we not as righteous as they were.

Originally Posted by UtahDan (Post 211059)

The responses to this, however, don't even seem to admit this possibility. If someone had said "and therefore the church isn't true" I could understand why many would say "that isn't one of the possibilities in my mind." But that isn't what is being said. That some would, at least apparently, say that it is not possible that we are under condemnation or that we need to be more righteous shows me that they are committed to a world view were all is well and right rather than being committed to any particular ideology or teaching.