Elder Holland's Book of Mormon talk

[UtahDan]

I like this quote from Holland from the PBS special "The Mormons":


http://www.pbs.org/mormons/interviews/holland.html

That is a remarkably interesting quote, particularly when juxtaposed with the talk he just gave. I'll let someone else put the passages up next to each other. I'll just say that it is interesting and probably the differences are ascribable to context and audience.

[SeattleUte]

That is a remarkably interesting quote, particularly when juxtaposed with the talk he just gave. I'll let someone else put the passages up next to each other. I'll just say that it is interesting and probably the differences are ascribable to context and audience.

Why is it remarkable? It's the same old tired defense I dealt with yesterday. "It's easier to believe that an angel delivered the book to him in solid gold pages and he translated it from 'reformed Egyptian' with magic spectacles fastened to a metal meso-American breastplate than that he wrote it." Keep telling yourself that, Elder Holland.

He's a highly educated man, very articulate. He's probably read a few other books, at least. This is one of those occasions where I really suspect absense of good faith. (He's not bearing his testimony, he's employing a rhetorical argument that I think is not only nonsense but extremely damaging to LDS members. It's a really limiting horizon to believe this book could not be created by human hand, and the Joseph Smith was too much a rube to do it. It's the type of windbaggery I put up with for too long in my young years. It's just an assertion; and it's crap!)

[TripletDaddy]

Why is it remarkable? It's the same old tired defense I dealt with yesterday. "It's easier to believe that an angel delivered the book to him in solid gold pages and he translated it from 'reformed Egyptian' with magic spectacles fastened to a metal meso-American breastplate than that he wrote it." Keep telling yourself that, Elder Holland.

He's a highly educated man, very articulate. He's probably read a few other books, at least. This is one of those occasions where I really suspect absense of good faith. (He's not bearing his testimony, he's employing a rhetorical argument that I think is not only nonsense but extremely damaging to LDS members. It's a really limiting horizon to believe this book could not be created by human hand, and the Joseph Smith was too much a rube to do it. It's the type of windbaggery I put up with for too long in my young years. It's just an assertion; and it's crap!)

If it makes you feel any better, this new rhetoric may be the very thing that opens the door for a progressive stance on homosexuality. Because, you know....why else would someone choose such an existence, with all the accompanying challenges? Rhetorically speaking, I mean...

[SeattleUte]

If it makes you feel any better, this new rhetoric may be the very thing that opens the door for a progressive stance on homosexuality. Because, you know....why else would someone choose such an existence, with all the accompanying challenges? Rhetorically speaking, I mean...

Remember this? LOL. One of my favorite moments in Cuf (yes, I'm reduced to awarding myself LOL's). Heh (God bless Tex). I still am puzzled by "and also Jew..."

http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showpost.php?p=66979&postcount=195

[UtahDan]

Why is it remarkable?

Because of what he just said this weekend, which is apparently at odds with it. Try to keep up, old guy.

[SeattleUte]

Because of what he just said this weekend, which is apparently at odds with it. Try to keep up, old guy.

How is it at odds? I think we read different parts of the quote. I read him saying the same thing he said this weekend, i.e., no way he could have written it, and no way he would have died for it if it wasn't delivered by an angel.

[UtahDan]

How is it at odds? I think we read different parts of the quote. I read him saying the same thing he said this weekend, i.e., no way he could have written it, and no way he would have died for it if it wasn't delivered by an angel.

I'm going to allow myself to be manipulated. Here you go:

If anyone is foolish enough, or misled enough, to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text, teeming with literary and Semitic complexity, without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages somehow, especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers, if that's the case then such persons, elect or otherwise, have been deceived. And if they leave this church they must do so by crawling over, or under, or around the Book of Mormon to make their exit.

I think you'd be as aware as I am that that we have many people who are members of the church who do not have some burning conviction as to its origins, who have some other feeling about it that is not as committed to foundational statements and the premises of Mormonism. But we're not going to invite somebody out of the church over that any more than we would anything else about degrees of belief or steps of hope or steps of conviction. ... We would say: "This is the way I see it, and this is the faith I have; this is the foundation on which I'm going forward. If I can help you work toward that I'd be glad to, but I don't love you less; I don't distance you more; I don't say you're unacceptable to me as a person or even as a Latter-day Saint if you can't make that step or move to the beat of that drum." ... We really don't want to sound smug. We don't want to seem uncompromising and insensitive.

The first paragraph seems much less accepting of a non-literal approach than the second does.

[SeattleUte]

I'm going to allow myself to be manipulated. Here you go:





The first paragraph seems much less accepting of a non-literal approach than the second does.

No manipulation intended here. I think he's saying the same thing both times and beind equally silly.

[cowboy]

No manipulation intended here. I think he's saying the same thing both times and beind equally silly.

Silly, or just ignorant? I lean toward ignorant. It's not like he's some Ivy League intellect. Same with the rest of the 12 - who the hell do they think they are, heart surgeons? Nuclear physicists? Supreme court justices? They're just run of the mill proletariat who are obviously deceived, and in over their heads.

[byu71]

Silly, or just ignorant? I lean toward ignorant. It's not like he's some Ivy League intellect. Same with the rest of the 12 - who the hell do they think they are, heart surgeons? Nuclear physicists? Supreme court justices? They're just run of the mill proletariat who are obviously deceived, and in over their heads.

I think I get your drift and agree. Occasionally I don't agree with something a member of the 12 might say, but I would never call them silly or what they say as silly. You don't hold a position they hold by being silly or ignorant.

Even on a position or statement I disagree with them on, I would be no match for them in a debate over the statement.

[SeattleUte]

Silly, or just ignorant? I lean toward ignorant. It's not like he's some Ivy League intellect. Same with the rest of the 12 - who the hell do they think they are, heart surgeons? Nuclear physicists? Supreme court justices? They're just run of the mill proletariat who are obviously deceived, and in over their heads.

I would be pleased to go mano a mano with Elder Holland on this issue. I know he's got an Ivy League PhD. I don't care. He also says he thinks that Greek culture ruined Christianity. He's being silly there too.

[cowboy]

I would be pleased to go mano a mano with Elder Holland on this issue. I know he's got an Ivy League PhD. I don't care. He also says he thinks that Greek culture ruined Christianity. He's being silly there too.

I'd pay more to see that than I did to watch Tyson bite off Hollyfield's ear.

[SoonerCoug]

Silly, or just ignorant? I lean toward ignorant. It's not like he's some Ivy League intellect. Same with the rest of the 12 - who the hell do they think they are, heart surgeons? Nuclear physicists? Supreme court justices? They're just run of the mill proletariat who are obviously deceived, and in over their heads.

It doesn't take a genius to get a PhD from an Ivy Leaque university (or from any school, of course). It does require a lot of persistence and an above-average IQ.

I would concede that being a top leader of the LDS Church also requires persistence and an above-average IQ.

Furthermore, there are different kinds of smart. Einstein couldn't recognize basic garden plants (including bean plants). Henry Eyring, the genius physical chemist and my grandma's brother, thought it was hilarious that Einstein "didn't know beans." And while Henry Eyring was a great defender of science, even he made some silly, uninformed comments about human evolution (which was not his expertise).

But the most important thing to remember is that with religion we're talking about untestable supernatural phenomena. If someone is arguing to me that there are red demons buzzing through the air, that their television is speaking to them, and that they can read people's minds, they may be the smartest person in the world, but that doesn't change the fact that they're off their rocker.

[creekster]

I would be pleased to go mano a mano with Elder Holland on this issue. I know he's got an Ivy League PhD. I don't care. He also says he thinks that Greek culture ruined Christianity. He's being silly there too.

And like that the light bulb goes off. THIS explains SU's rants and preening. He realizes now, at this late stage of life, that if he had just held to the rod he could have been a GA! A contender! Oh the bitter bile from backing the wrong horse!

[SeattleUte]

I'd pay more to see that than I did to watch Tyson bite off Hollyfield's ear.

The problem with Holland's argument is he's appealing to common sense. If he's talking about what he's felt or his faith, that's one thing. I'm not interested in debating that with him. But his appeal to common sense asks, "In common experience, what's more likely, that someone like Joseph Smith wrote it, or that he got it in gold book form from an angel?" I guarantee any unbiased rational person would agree with me. He's making a bad argument. I suspect he knows it and he's deliberately trying to beguile you. 100% of unbiased people would agree with me.