Can the Prophet Lead you Astray?

[deacon blues]

I found this site to be quite interesting; plus the featured artwork was well-done.--www.heavenlydaughters.com/2016/09/the-prophet-can lead-you-astray

or just google-- heavenly daughters prophet can lead you astray

[deacon blues]

I found this site to be quite interesting; plus the featured artwork was well-done.-- www.heavenlydaughters.com/2016/09/the-prophet-can lead-you-astray

or just google-- heavenly daughters prophet can lead you astray

[deacon blues]

I'll add the next comment. 1st Kings 13, about the disobedient prophet, is one of those weird chapters, where God doesn't act the way he's supposed to. Another example is 2nd Nephi 5, where God turns the Lamanites skin black. The typical LDS response is to avoid these chapters, but I've noticed from attending a Presbyterian Church and reading sites from other denominations, that many mainstream Christians like to engage these troublesome sections. I'm reminded of our heavy use of proof texting (use of isolated scriptures + esegisis {google it- its a good word to know]) in the mission field. I remember using the famous Isaiah 29:4 "familiar spirit" scripture, and being schooled by a person who knew what "familiar spirit" really meant.
The point is, mainstream Christians, who sometimes are overshadowed by evangelicals, often view ancient scripture as a tool where we learn from its mistakes; the point being, ancient scripture as a way of examining how ancient people misunderstood God. Am I making any sense?

[RubinHighlander]

Excellent post! I think she did an great job with all her examples and research. This could be a great segue into the CES letter for those NOMs trying to help their better half understand the issues.

Just last night I was having a discussion with a NOM friend about Monson's condition and how he's not fit to lead. We talked about the "never lead us astray" doctrine and the corner the COB put's itself in by never letting a prophet or apostle retire for medical, or other reasons. Now they have to try and deal with it by shortening or eliminating his talks, holding him up at the pulpit, etc. What if he went Alzheimer on the stand and spewed out some nonsense or even Tourettes? I guess if he got that bad they wouldn't let him up there, but it is a risk.

[document]

I loved this article. It laid out clear contradictions and lays out a justification for why it is (a) OK that prophets can lead people astray and (b) that they most definitely do lead people astray. It remains both a faithful and a challenging perspective.

I, too, appreciate the grappling with scripture and the past to form a better understanding of our religion.

I also agree with your statement that all too often the LDS perspective on scripture is two fold: to select scripture that doesn't challenge us and to bend scripture into a reading of modern Mormonism. When a challenging story is glazed over, a deeper understanding of your religion is put on the shelf (and I don't mean the "church isn't true shelf").

During my believing years, I once asked during a Sunday school lesson regarding Nephi, "What does Nephi being commanded to kill Laban say about God?" The discussion that followed was uncomfortable but a growing experience for everyone as we struggled with both the concept of "leaving the 99 for the 1" and the "kill the 1 to save the 99" sides of God.

My great struggle in Mormonism started when I read Abinidi closely and had to ask the question, this great hero of Mormonism is either wrong or the Mormon church is wrong about the nature of God. What is it? When I realized that multiple prophets had differing opinions and beliefs in regards to the nature of God (as the article pointed out between Kimball and Young), it caused me to really study out my religion and my belief in the nature of God. Was Abinidi, Joseph, Brigham, or Talmage right?

Oftentimes, I've also noticed that when a challenging scripture is given up, a simple answer is given without a follow up question. In the New Testament, Christ is asked about the after life and marriage. He is given a hypothetical and responds of a woman married to multiple men and who she will be married to in the afterlife: "people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven". The simple answer I was given was that Jesus meant that since they were not sealed, they wouldn't be married in heaven. If you accept that answer, it begs a follow up question: If people neither marry nor be given in marriage, why do we perform temple weddings?.

There are dozens of these examples throughout the scriptures. It becomes increasingly difficult in the case of Mormonism or in literal Biblical interpretation to accept the entire Bible as the word of God. How do you marry conflicting views? The answer is that you cannot, so you bury your head into the sand and do selective readings, simplistic interpretations, or crazy insane mental gymnastics.

I love Mormonism: I love the fact that there have been 4 prophetic versions of what God is, I love the fact that the temple has had multiple changes that have significantly different approaches, I love the fact that the book of Mormon was changed later to get rid of the Trinity, I love that they still cling to D&C 132 while distancing themselves from it. If you believe it, you must grapple with these things. Unfortunately, I don't believe in it, I don't fit into the culture, and my attempts to remain LDS and a non-literal believer were met with hostility. I can never be Mormon for those three reasons. However, I will continue to study it as the contradiction that is Mormonism fascinates me to no end.

[alas]

I'll add the next comment. 1st Kings 13, about the disobedient prophet, is one of those weird chapters, where God doesn't act the way he's supposed to. Another example is 2nd Nephi 5, where God turns the Lamanites skin black. The typical LDS response is to avoid these chapters, but I've noticed from attending a Presbyterian Church and reading sites from other denominations, that many mainstream Christians like to engage these troublesome sections. I'm reminded of our heavy use of proof texting (use of isolated scriptures + esegisis {google it- its a good word to know]) in the mission field. I remember using the famous Isaiah 29:4 "familiar spirit" scripture, and being schooled by a person who knew what "familiar spirit" really meant.
The point is, mainstream Christians, who sometimes are overshadowed by evangelicals, often view ancient scripture as a tool where we learn from its mistakes; the point being, ancient scripture as a way of examining how ancient people misunderstood God. Am I making any sense?

Ancient scripture as a tool to learn from its mistakes, to understand how ancient people misunderstood God. That really is a brilliant concept.

[begin rant]Something that frustrates me no end is when people hold up the wisdom of the ancients as if they knew something we modern people don't know. Whether the theory is that some ancient aliens taught the ancient humans some great secrets, or just that ancient peoples were closer to God or closer to nature, the whole idea is ignorant of both what we know now and how smart the ancient people really were. For example, when we were taking a tour of some Mayan ruins the tour guide said that modern scientists cannot figure out how the Mayan made their wonderful cement that has held up for how ever many years those ruins have been around. I wanted to recommend to the guy that they should give some to Abby on NCIS and she could give them an exact chemical breakdown. Scientists can give us an exact chemical breakdown of some far distant planet, but not the mortar between some rocks in Mexico? Just because too many builders today take shortcuts and cheapen their mortar and it crumbles does not mean that scientists are stupider than ancient people. It just means that Mexican builders want to save a buck now, sell the building, and then not care when it falls apart on the owner. I know how to make decent mortar and I also know the stuff you buy at Home Depot is crap. I learned it from ancient aliens. Another example was on a TV show where they were saying how modern engineers have no idea how the ancients built (I think it was) the roof of the Roman pantheon, then later in the same show they described some brick layers experimenting by filling the whole building with sand before putting on such a roof. "But that was just too much sand and would have been impossible" no, it is just one heck of a lot of sand and they would have had other experiments to learn from. The fact that today we don't need to do a roof that way, does not mean we don't know how they did it.

But really, why would Bronze Age people know more about God and morality than people do today? Yet the people who think the Bible is written straight from the mouth of God, are really saying that the people who wrote it had some kind of direct interaction with God that nobody has today. Why? Has God stopped loving us?

I just don't buy it. I think that people wrote what they knew, and why should we reject the religion of the ancient Romans or Greeks while we believe the more primitive religion of ancient Isreal? The people of ancient Isreal just edited theirs as they evolved so that today it does not look as pagan as what the Ancient Roman's stuff looks. Well, we have the Roman pagan stuff as it was written and we have a highly edited version where priests went back and edited parts to make them sound less pagan. The archelolgy of ancient Isreal is showing us just how pagan the people were until they were taken captive into Babalon and King Darius decided that one God was really the only one who was God. Maybe Danial helped convince him and maybe Darius convinced Daniel. The Bible tells one story and the Zoroastrians tell another story.

If you look at the Bible, you can see it evolve. All religions evolve. They borrow good ideas from each other and they evolve.

Someday, if anybody is in a mood to study just how pagan the Bible is, compare the story of Hercules to the story of Samson. Samson translates to "son of the sun god." The town where Samson was born translates to dawn. Then there is the story about the lion, the bone of an ass. They are the same story, just given a different cultural twist, just like the story of Cinderella has a German version, a French version, and an English version. The glass slipper in French is a fur slipper. Ops, mistranslation.

So, I study the Bible, not as the inerrant word of God, but as a way to see how religion has evolved.

[RubinHighlander]

If you look at the Bible, you can see it evolve. All religions evolve. They borrow good ideas from each other and they evolve.

Yes! And now it's time for humans to evolve past religion and any other institutions that attempts to rule over us via fear and guilt. We have built machines (Hubble, super collider, DNA sequencing) that are starting to provide answers to questions our ancestors could not comprehend.