Calling B.S. on Conference

[Just This Guy]

While Listening to the latest Infant Gen Conference, they played a segment from a talk in April of 2007. While this is a bit older, this could be a prime one for RFM to dissect. I am not an expert on church history, but I believe that you can call bullshit on this particular story.

So lets take a look at it. Those of you who are more familiar with church history, please feel free to correct any of my assertions.

I am referring to the story of Mary with the Coffee problem as told by Julie B. Beck in April of 2007.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... g?lang=eng

So to summarize:

Mary had pioneer parents, typical good Mormon kid, but has a habit of drinking coffee. Because of this, she cannot go to the temple until late in life and 9 out of her 10 kids don't get married in the temple because of their coffee problem. The story is quite vague on a lot of details* and I think that may be intentional.

So, Mary has pioneer parents. The pioneer movement lasted between 1847 and 1869 when the transcontinental railroad was completed. Even if we assume that this woman's parents were kids when they came over and didn't have her until a decade or so later, a birth date of 1880 would be reasonable for as late as it could be.

Next, while the church added the WoW as a requirement to enter the temple in 1921**, we also know from various sources that the church didn't really enforce it with regard to coffee for well over a decade. WoW enforcement was primarily for alcohol at the start of the 20th century. Coffee prohibition came along later. J. Golden Kimbal had several stories about his struggle with coffee drinking well into the 1930s. We h ave proof that an apostle could be a coffee drinker and therefore in good standing with full knowledge of upper leadership long after it was made a requirement.

So back to Mary. If she was born in 1880, she would be 41 when the WOW becomes a requirement and in her 50's before they crack down on it. When she would be of marrying age, say 18 to 25 -ish, it would be between 1898 and 1905. Coffee drinking was not something that would exclude a person from getting married in the temple. She would have to be in her 50's before she got married and started having kids if the temple really was something that would limit her from getting married. That seams very doubtful if she had 10 kids. She would have had to start much younger.

Keep in mind that an 1880 birth year is likely as late as we could reasonably expect it to be. Most likely it was much earlier which only makes the problem worse. You can add to this that it is stated that 5 generations of posterity have come along since this woman had her issues. If we go with 20 year to produce each new generation, from 2007, it means this woman started having kids in 1907 and since he was a good Mormon girl, we can expect her to be married before that. This was 15+ years before the WoW became a commandment. So there is no reason why this woman would be denied a temple marriage based on the information presented in the talk.

Any way you look at it, the math does not match up with the historical record. So based on this, I am going to call bullshit on this one.

* I think you can make the argument that the lack of detail is because the story is fiction.
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_W ... _adherence

[Apologeticsislying]

The vast majority of faith promoting stories, as well as guilting people stories are always made up, just like so many stories from Joseph Smith are......I side with you, this smells of fictional coffee.....

[græy]

Well written, Guy.

I get so frustrated at the sheer number of embellished or completely made up stories told for the cause of promoting truth. The church wouldn't know honesty if honesty slapped it in the face.

[Yobispo]

She was quite passionate in that talk, which leads me to believe she was repeating something she had heard but that she really believed. It's no excuse for telling a BS story, of course. After all the BS stories and people getting caught (Dunn and Holland come to mind) I am still surprised that they don't stick to true stories. Maybe its because they're in the bubble for so much of their lives that they don't have much else beside faithful rumors to draw upon.

[Red Ryder]

She was quite passionate in that talk, which leads me to believe she was repeating something she had heard but that she really believed. It's no excuse for telling a BS story, of course. After all the BS stories and people getting caught (Dunn and Holland come to mind) I am still surprised that they don't stick to true stories. Maybe its because they're in the bubble for so much of their lives that they don't have much else beside faithful rumors to draw upon.

Or they too are repeating stories they heard. Celestial telephone....

[consiglieri]

A brand new episode on the Saturday morning session of the most recent GenCon just went under today at RFM FYI!

Hope everybody is doing okay!!!