long ago ideas

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago." - Friedrich Nietzsche. Long ago, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery conquered false claims that the Book of Mormon was fiction or that it came through a stone in a hat. But these old claims have resurfaced in recent years. To conquer them again, we have to return to what Joseph and Oliver taught.

Monday, October 8, 2018

Good information more important than ever

General conference was tremendous, but I'll just comment on one element today.

The shift toward more home-based and individual study (the 2-hour Church meeting block) makes it more important than ever that Church members have good information.

As President Nelson has taught, "good inspiration is based upon good information."

The corollary: we can't expect good inspiration when we do not have good information.

The problem is, we can't trust materials produced by Church employees who promote, consciously or not, M2C.

We've seen how the Joseph Smith manual (Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith) censored a critical part of the Wentworth letter. This censorship means that millions of Church members around the world, in every language, will never know what Joseph Smith actually taught--unless they go to the original source (the March 1, 1842 Times and Seasons) or another reference that contains the full Wentworth letter.

Of course, these original sources have not been translated, which means that non-English speakers will never learn the truth. 

We've seen how the new book Saints censors critical references to the New York Cumorah and other related events/teachings in Church history. English-speakers can go to the original sources, but non-English speakers who have to rely on Saints will never learn the truth.

We've seen how the M2C citation cartel continues to censor this important information. One of the best recent examples is Opening the Heavens, as we've seen. At least that book hasn't been translated into other languages, so far as I know.

I encourage Church members to read original sources and avoid anything published by the citation cartel (BYU Studies, Book of Mormon Central Censor, Fairly Mormon, the Interpreter, etc.) unless you clearly understand their agenda.

The problem for non-English speakers remains, but we're working on solutions for them.


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