If I could ask them one question . . . Come Follow Me, Lesson 27

[annotatedbom]

For Come Follow Me, Lesson 27, Jul 6-12, 2020, Alma 30-31

If I wanted to encourage thought and try to understand devout believers better, I might ask:
“Are Book of Mormon stories about anti-Christs helpful?”

See the Things to consider for this lesson.

And, here’s a list of some other observations about this lesson’s reading.

Enjoy!
A-Bom

[Hagoth]

"I wonder how many atheists today cannot believe in God because … the devil appeared to them in the form of an angel? This makes no sense at all."

So he was an atheist who was fooled by what he thought was an angel sent by God??? Such a sloppy story. How do people even read that without saying, "wait a minute..."

This story always really bothered me, even as a kid. The weirdest thing is what happened to Korihor after he realized the error of his ways and begged Alma for forgiveness. Alma had spent much of his own life doing exactly what Korihor was doing, but on a much bigger scale; he was leading an organized movement to destroy the church. But God allowed him to see the error of his ways and repent. But no repentance for Korihor, just a horrible death: "...he was run upon and trodden down, even until he was dead. And thus we see the end of him who perverteth the ways of the Lord; and thus we see that the devil will not support his children at the last day, but doth speedily drag them down to hell."

The main difference I can see between Alma and Korihor is that Alma was born into privilege in the church because of his father's General Authority status.

I'm really glad you included that B. H. Roberts quote about the similarity of the anti-Christs in the BoM, despite being separated by thousands of years. Roberts listed 12 points of argument that were shared between their stories. John Welch's response is that all of these guys were lawyers, so they were just presenting their cases in the same legal format. I think we should at least entertain Brother Roberts' suggestion that they were so "so nearly alike that one mind is the author of them, and that a young and underdeveloped, but piously inclined mind. The evidence I sorrowfully submit, points to Joseph Smith as their creator”

[deacon blues]

Parley Pratt took the BOM too seriously and tried to copy the Alma/Korihor encounter. Some time around 1837-38 he wrote a pamphlet in which he cursed LeRoy Sutherland, a BOM critic that he would be unable to write. It did not come to pass. I can’t remember the details but you can look it up. I was disappointed the find that the curse was edited out of many later versions of the pamphlet.

The pamphlet was named “Mormonism Unveiled,” not to be confused with other pamphlets of the same name.

[Reuben]

"I wonder how many atheists today cannot believe in God because … the devil appeared to them in the form of an angel? This makes no sense at all."

So he was an atheist who was fooled by what he thought was an angel sent by God??? Such a sloppy story. How do people even read that without saying, "wait a minute..."

This story always really bothered me, even as a kid. The weirdest thing is what happened to Korihor after he realized the error of his ways and begged Alma for forgiveness. Alma had spent much of his own life doing exactly what Korihor was doing, but on a much bigger scale; he was leading an organized movement to destroy the church. But God allowed him to see the error of his ways and repent. But no repentance for Korihor, just a horrible death: "...he was run upon and trodden down, even until he was dead. And thus we see the end of him who perverteth the ways of the Lord; and thus we see that the devil will not support his children at the last day, but doth speedily drag them down to hell."

The main difference I can see between Alma and Korihor is that Alma was born into privilege in the church because of his father's General Authority status.

The way I reconciled this as a believer went something like this.

1. Korihor's self-reported supervillain origin story makes no damn sense.

2. Therefore, Korihor was just telling Alma a lie that he thought Alma would want to believe.

3. Korihor was not forgiven because he was incapable of repenting - which Alma could discern because of his transparent lie.

4. Korihor's sticky end was just because he had spiritually slaughtered thousands of people.

It's weird, but I'm still pleased with this explanation.

Nowadays, my biggest gripe with the way the Book of Mormon portrays unbelievers isn't with a single story. It's how all of them are utter villains. If they're not preaching against Jesus they're murdering and raping, worse than the animals we would be without the gospel.

It's a propagandized children's story from a religious dystopia, with all the nuance and subtlety of a brick. For it to be anything else requires reading words that aren't there.

[Hagoth]

Nowadays, my biggest gripe with the way the Book of Mormon portrays unbelievers isn't with a single story. It's how all of them are utter villains. If they're not preaching against Jesus they're murdering and raping, worse than the animals we would be without the gospel.

An entire continent packed full of millions of people and there wasn't a single one of them that just didn't have an opinion about Jesus one way or the other.