If I could ask them one question . . . Come Follow Me, Lesson 20

[annotatedbom]

For Come Follow Me, lesson 20, May 18-24, Mosiah 25-28

If I wanted to encourage thought and try to understand devout believers better, I might ask:

“Why don’t modern seers translate like Book of Mormon seers?”

Click here to see the Things to consider for this lesson.

And, here’s a list of some other problems I see in this week’s reading.

Enjoy!
A-Bom

[jfro18]

This is always a fun question and it's the reason Nelson works so hard to make everything into a revelation.

After Joseph Smith, no one has attempted to do revelations or translations like he did and for good reason. They know how completely stupid they look when they try to predict anything, and none of them have the balls to speak in the voice of God like JS did all the time.

I wish more people would really think about that question because it's a really important one.

[Corsair]

This is an excellent idea. After the seer stone was acknowledged a few years ago, the apologetic explanations have been an attempt to normalize geomancy. But, this is a material claim, and we are requested to sustain Russell Nelson and the other apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators every six months and in ward and stake conferences.

So, my question about the seer stone is: "Does it work?" Seriously, what would Russell Nelson see if he put that rock in a hat? Would Russell Nelson every consider using material objects out of Joseph Smith's milieu to receive revelation?

[blazerb]

This is an excellent idea. After the seer stone was acknowledged a few years ago, the apologetic explanations have been an attempt to normalize geomancy. But, this is a material claim, and we are requested to sustain Russell Nelson and the other apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators every six months and in ward and stake conferences.

So, my question about the seer stone is: "Does it work?" Seriously, what would Russell Nelson see if he put that rock in a hat? Would Russell Nelson every consider using material objects out of Joseph Smith's milieu to receive revelation?

I think they know that the rock does not work. I would be surprised that any president of the church has ever had the idea of looking at the rock while in a hat. To Russell Nelson's mind, he does not need a rock, just pen and paper and a bedroom without Wendy in it.

[Hagoth]

So, my question about the seer stone is: "Does it work?" Seriously, what would Russell Nelson see if he put that rock in a hat? Would Russell Nelson every consider using material objects out of Joseph Smith's milieu to receive revelation?

Elder Uchtdorf already addressed this. We don't need to use seerstones because we have iPhones. Since the two are more or less equivalent, any information Pres. Nelson looks up on his iPhone is revelation.

Seerstone or iPhone, we're still waiting for the Book of Joseph translation, dammit!

[Angel]

I was listening to an interesting podcast the other day on Taoism - a little unrelated, but the host values modern day translations and interpretations of the book more than the original, and actually discouraged digging backwards into trying to find the original text which I found fascinating. Their point being, we should know more now then we did then. The current ideas and refined versions of the Tao should be more valuable then past texts... Like science - old out of date text, vs current text, which has more knowledge and wisdom in it?

Anything that values past knowledge or historic ways of doing things over current knowledge prevents progress. This is the trouble with so many systems of belief I think, to value an old text, or the views of a historic character over current understanding. To say - our ancestors had many superstitious ways of explaining what they did not know... they were wrong of course. Isn't it nice that we no longer rely on reading tea leaves etc?

[Angel]

I was listening to an interesting podcast the other day on Taoism - a little unrelated, but the host values modern day translations and interpretations of the book more than the original, and actually discouraged digging backwards into trying to find the original text which I found fascinating. Their point being, we should know more now then we did then. The current ideas and refined versions of the Tao should be more valuable then past texts... Like science - old out of date text, vs current text, which has more knowledge and wisdom in it?

Anything that values past knowledge or historic ways of doing things over current knowledge prevents progress. This is the trouble with so many systems of belief I think, to value an old text, or the views of a historic character over current understanding. To say - our ancestors had many superstitious ways of explaining what they did not know... they were wrong of course. Isn't it nice that we no longer rely on reading tea leaves etc?

[Hagoth]

To say - our ancestors had many superstitious ways of explaining what they did not know... they were wrong of course. Isn't it nice that we no longer rely on reading tea leaves etc?

“If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.” - Dalai Lama XIV