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.

Friday, October 5, 2018

Misleading the Saints

Apparently there has been some Internet chatter by M2C advocates to the effect that I'm saying the M2C intellectuals and their followers have been misleading the Latter-day Saints.

Just to be clear... Of course the M2C intellectual are misleading the Saints.

If they weren't trying to mislead the Saints, why would they engage in censorship?

The very purpose for censorship and citation cartels is to mislead people by withholding information from them so they cannot make informed choices.

Censorship arises when people and organizations know their ideas cannot withstand scrutiny and comparison to alternatives.

Book of Mormon Central Censor, for example, will never allow a side-by-side comparison of M2C and the North American setting (Heartland, Moroni's America, etc.) because they know most Church member would reject M2C.

Naturally, everyone who works at Book of Mormon Central Censor supports this censorship. 

Some use social media to promote M2C, thereby further misleading members of the Church.

M2C intellectuals and their followers want members of the Church to believe their M2C-inspired interpretation of the text is the only interpretation that is "plausible" because it represents the consensus of the intellectuals in the citation cartel. It's absurd circular reasoning, and it's no wonder people outside the M2C bubble don't find it persuasive in the least, but people inside the M2C bubble love M2C because it confirms their M2C bias.

M2C intellectuals and their followers want members of the Church to believe the sciences (archaeology, anthropology, geology, geography, etc.) support only M2C. In reality, every theory of Book of Mormon geography relies on these sciences. That's why the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah are essential. 

And that's why M2C intellectuals and their followers want members of the Church to believe the prophets have never taught the New York Cumorah. They don't want anyone to read (let alone believe) Letter VII and the other consistent and persistent teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah.

Hence, we get a carefully edited, M2C-compliant book such as Saints that censors the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah.

The only way they can maintain M2C is by censoring information that every member of the Church should know.
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Manual that misleads English-reading LDS
The classic example of misleading the Saints was the lesson manual titled Teachings of the Presidents of the Church--Joseph Smith.

The editing of the Wentworth letter in that manual is the best example of Orwellian tactics I can think of.

Manual that misleads French-reading LDS
Here we have Joseph Smith himself, specifically requesting that his article be published "entire, ungarnished, and without misrepresentation," but the Correlation Department specifically ignored Joseph's directions.

No one can look at the Joseph Smith manual and not realize that whoever edited it misled the Latter-day Saints.

Manual that misleads German-reading LDS
For millions of members of the Church around the world--especially those who do not read English--this manual is the main source of Joseph's teachings. Consequently, millions of Latter-day Saints have been misled by that manual.
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Manual that misleads Tagalog-reading LDS
Now, millions of members of the Church will learn a revised version of Church history in the book Saints.

These unsuspecting members of the Church will never learn what the prophets have actually taught, just as they will never learn the key passages from the Wentworth letter that Joseph wanted everyone in the world--including every Church member--to know.
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I favor using actual historical accounts instead of paraphrasing them to mislead members of the Church.

Manual that misleads Spanish-reading LDS
Based on what comes out through the Correlation Department, I suspect we'll see more and more censorship as the M2C intellectuals and their followers throughout the Church continue to mislead members of the Church to promote their M2C theories.




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