30 days ago

Podcasts Faith and Religion Come Follow Me

Get a copy of my book: https://www.amazon.com/Consider-Servant-Kendal-Brian-Hunter/dp/1555177522

Opening Hymn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g2F2eiZSF8

I. Intro
i. You're looking good today and it feels good to be with you.
ii. Patter: Ketchup
II. News
i. https://people.com/imagine-dragons-dan-reynolds-explains-why-he-left-mormonism-exclusive-8673144
ii. Dan Reynolds left Church, divorced,involved with children, new girlfriend
iii. Left it a long time ago
1. My take
a. Church (Monson) 2017 supported it, but he burnt the relationship:
i. https://www.deseret.com/2017/8/27/20618539/loveloud-festival-draws-17-000-with-bands-messages-of-acceptance/
ii. We applaud the LoveLoud Festival for LGBT youth's aim to bring people together to address teen safety and to express respect and love for all of God’s children. We join our voice with all who come together to foster a community of inclusion in which no one is mistreated because of who they are or what they believe.
iii. We share common beliefs, among them the pricelessness of our youth and the value of families. We earnestly hope this festival and other related efforts can build respectful communication, better understanding and civility as we all learn from each other.
iv. So, church not anti-LGBTQ people, unless denial. DAn could have be a unified, but chose not to be one.
b. Joseph Smith Ch 29: "If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way."
c. Pray for charity and not use unrighteousness dominion to get him back.
2. What is is frame of mind: "I have to love myself enough to follow my truth."
a. Emotion
b. Himself
c. His own truth
3. Compare with Korihor, and contrast with scripture:
a. "heart and mind" D&C 8
b. Himself, versus Christ as center
i. Follow your own path usually means, assimilate the world, adopt Babylon ethos.
ii. Like John Lenon: All you need is love, except for e wife and son?
c. Truth
i. D&C 93: Independent, not person relative
ii. "all we like sheep have gone astray everyone to his own way"
iii. D&C 1: "They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god"
iv. Mormon 9 imagined up a god
4. Which is the crucial question: "How do you" feel or "How does reality function"? And, "Who are you willing to hurt to follow your own compass"
5. Follow your own truth: sever Chrsit, The Church, and wife. A lonely ricocheting atom.
iv. Prince Harry (Meghan Markel, Parodies on South Park): Fist amendment bonkers. May 17, 2021 https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/05/prince-harry-armchair-expert-podcast-first-amendment-bonkers-conservative-reactions#:~:text=%E2%80%9CI've%20got%20so%20much,been%20here%20a%20short%20time.
III. Theme:
i. "The Atheist Who Saw An Angel!"
ii. Apostate worship systems
1. Anti-Christ-ism, Nephite infection
2. Rameumptom, Zormaite worship
iii. ETB Manual ch 9
1. the Book of Mormon exposes the enemies of Christ. It confounds false doctrines and lays down contention (see I Nephi 3:12). It fortifies the humble followers of Christ against the evil designs, strategies, and doctrines of the devil in our day. The type of apostates in the Book of Mormon are similar to the type we have today. God, with His infinite foreknowledge, so molded the Book of Mormon that we might see the error and know how to combat false educational, political, religious, and philosophical concepts of our time
IV. Alma 30
i. Korihor:
1. Jaredite name (Ether 7:4)
2. Not a philosopher (anachronism, 300 years after Lehi left), but an Antichrist
3. Teach against Christ, prophecies, and prophets
ii. Assertions, Articles of Faith (not arguments):
1. No one know future (except eclipses, and statistical generalities)
2. Prophesies foolish traditions (labeling, not identifying)
3. Not know what cannot see (Atoms, rules of math, ideas)
4. Frenzied mind (ad hominem)
5. No atonement made (assertion)
6. Fared management create,genius (assertion)
7. Whatever do, no crime ( ditto)
8. Whoredoms
iii. During trials
1. Foolish traditions and ancient (ad novitatum)
2. You don't know if they are true (ad fidentia, mind reading--philosophical problem of other minds)
3. Contrasts: Ye say/I say (great persuasion technique)
a. Free/bondage
b. Children guilty of parents/born free (false premise)
c. Know/you don't know that is true
d. Christ come/not come
e. Free/bondage, glut
4. God an unknown being (labeling)
5. control by dreams, whims, visions, pretended mysteries
6. Christ will not come (can't know future, knows that Chrsit will not come)
a. Some people not logical, but they like how it feels to be thought of a being logical
iv. ANL: bound and cast out: more wise than Nephites
v. Alma's  Response
1. unpaid clergy: not one senine, factual error
2. Questions:
a. No god? No Christ?
b. What is your evidence? (Assertions)
c. I know you know
vi. Korhior' surrebuttal
1. Show me a sign
a. Empirical data, right?
b. Sherem Jacob 7:9
2. Alma responded Signs enough (eye of faith vs eye of evil)
a. words of brethren and prophets
b. words of scripture
c. Nature and planets
i. cosmological argument
ii. Paley watchmaker
iii. JS 1832 History
iv. Can Big Bang/Natural Selections--Einstein and Darwin--sufficiently explain things?
v. Anthorpic principle
3. Korihor:
a. "I do not deny the existence of a God, but I do not believe that there is a God"
b. Shifts position to agnostic, scared. Tactic, "case agreed upon"
c. Atheist and agnostic are different positions (Penn Gillette "God, No")
i. Negation
ii. Indeterminate
4. Struck dumb
a. Ad Baculum, but K asked for it.
b. I recollect a Campbellite preacher who came to Joseph Smith, I think his name was Hayden. He came in and made himself known to Joseph, and said that he had come a considerable distance to be convinced of the truth. "Why," said he, "Mr. Smith, I want to know the truth, and when I am convinced, I will spend all my talents and time in defending and spreading the doctrines of your religion... Well, Joseph commenced laying before him the coming forth of the work, and the first principles of the Gospel, when Mr. Hayden exclaimed, "O this is not the evidence I want, the evidence that I wish to have is a notable miracle; I want to see some powerful manifestation of the power of God ..." "Well," said Joseph, "what will you have done? Will you be struck blind, or dumb? Will you be paralyzed, or will you have one hand withered? Take your choice, choose which you please, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ it shall be done." "That is not the kind of miracle I want," said the preacher. "Then, sir," replied Joseph, "I can perform none, I am not going to bring any trouble upon any body else, sir, to convince you. I will tell you what you make me think of-the very first person who asked a sign of the Savior, for it is written, in the New Testament, that Satan came to the Savior in the desert, when he was hungry with forty days' fasting, and said, 'If you be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread.'" "And now," said Joseph, "the children of the devil and his servants have been asking for signs ever since; and when the people in that day continued asking him for signs to prove the truth of the Gospel which he preached, the Savior replied, 'It is a wicked and an adulterous generation that seeketh a sign,'" &c. (Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. 2:326-27)
5. Korihor
a. Always knew God
b. Devil as angel of light
c. Taught devil's teaching, pleasing to carnal mind
d. he believed it--self-deception (psychology in Book of Mormon)
e. Begged, and trampled by death
vii. Doctrine of Korihor in our day
1. Teaching against Christ and doctrine of Christ
2. Hume, Russell, Four Horsemen, Penn Gilette, etc.
3. Assertions without arguments and no proof
a. Know future and unseen things? But no Chrsit
b. Self-contradicoty statements:
i. David Humer If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) sect. 12, pt. 3
ii. Brash statement,. may people beguiled by brashness, but itself is abstract reasoning, and contains no experimental reasoning. By own standard, fails.
iii. Greatest English philosopher, but stepped on a skunk.
4. Take away rights and privileges
5. Organized religion controls and gluts people
6. Carnally pleasing (2 Nephi 28,Whores)
7. Follow own truth
V. Alma 31
i. Second contrast.
1. Context of Order of Nehor, and folk magic. Ethic specific
2. Alma personally went, with sons of Mosiah (with out Himni Helaman), sons shiblon and corihor) Dream team
3. sickened--are we too numb?
ii. Approach
1. And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.
2. BKP: Enemies from without, reinforced by apostates from within, challenge the faith of the rank and file members of the Church. It is not the programs of the Church they challenge.  ...  It is the doctrines they focus on. It is the doctrines they attack, and we notice that many Church leaders seem to be at a loss as to how to answer doctrinal questions. If our members are ignorant of the doctrines, we are in danger, notwithstanding efficient programs and buildings.
3. Word versus ward waterballon fights, foyer socializing, and talking about humanitarian work?
4. Humanitarian 2023 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/serve/caring/annual-summary?lang=eng
a. $1.36 billion in expenditures
b. 6,200,000 hours volunteered
c. 4,119 humanitarian projects
d. 191 countries and territories served
5. Community versus mere socializing
6. Off-topic comments and lessons.
7. Activism against church (two stake presidents)
8. teaching:
a. Teacher development, no student development.
b. Play video games
c. Talkaholics in class
d. Harvard Business review or book reports
iii. Mode of Worship
1. Bow down to dumb idols
2. Zoramites distinct, good generals (Alma 54:23)
3. Rameumptom
4. Prayer
a. God a spirit
b. No Christ
c. We chose, others damned (double presentation, ethocentrism)
d. Never spoke again
iv. Alma's prayer over dream team: president of church personally took charge.
1. Contrast Zoramite  prayer with Alma's Prayer
VI. Zoramite in our day
i. Build churches unto themselves
ii. False doctrine:
1. God a sprint
2. No Christ
3. Grace alone (irresistible grace, double predestination)
4. Chosen people
a. Identity politics
b. Racial essentially
c. Poor
d. Victims
e. Proletariate Commuism
f. Members of Party Soviet Union
g. Master Races, Nazi
h. LGBTQ more rights that straights? Or is it fairness for all?
iii. Rote prayers and performances
iv. Sunday-only faith
v. 2 Nephi 28
VII. Christ Quotient
i. Antichrists
1. President Joseph Fielding Smith, April 1952, "Antichrist is gaining power, and Satan has put into the hearts of the people-the majority of them-greed, and the desire to dominate and take advantage of those who are weak."
2. President George Albert Smith, April 1948,"In our own country we are in danger of anti-Christs; we are in danger of those who prefer to have their own way regardless of whether it is right or wrong ... I wonder if we are paying attention to what is going on, as a people, and realizing that if we do not prevent anti-Christs from controlling our Government of the United States, we have got to take a stand on the side of the Savior. We cannot be on the other side of the fence.
ii. War on Christ
1. This selection
a. Critiques from Non religious sources
b. Critiques from Religious sources
i. Other faiths
ii. Within our church
1. President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1949, Afternoon Meeting, p.163
2. The ravening wolves are amongst us, from our own membership, and they, more than any others, are clothed in sheep's clothing, because they wear the habiliments of the priesthood; they are they to whom Brother Widtsoe referred, as distorting the truth. We should be careful of them,
iii. Responding: Speak UP and Speak Out
1. D&C 71
a. Wherefore, confound your enemies; call upon them to meet you both in public and in private; and inasmuch as ye are faithful their shame shall be made manifest.
b. Wherefore, let them bring forth their strong reasons against the Lord.
c. Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you—there is no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper;
d. And if any man lift his voice against you he shall be confounded in mine own due time.
2. 2 N 7:4, 8-9/Isaiah 50
a. The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season unto thee
b. And the Lord is near, and he justifieth me. Who will contend with me? Let us stand together. Who is mine adversary? Let him come near me, and I will smite him with the strength of my mouth.
c. For the Lord God will help me. And all they who shall condemn me, behold, all they shall wax old as a garment, and the moth shall eat them up.
3. Not all discussions or declarations are contention.
a. Pattern of patter:
i. Thank you for sharing this. I value you as a person. I recognize people see things differently. Can I share how I see things (Ben Franklin)
ii. Ad Miserecordium:
1. YOu said you feel this way. Feeling are powerful personal experiences, and quite meaningful. But they aren't facts. How do you respond to someone who has equally powerful, but different feelings?
b. Walking away to avoid contention is a great option.
4. Paul: Eph 4" But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. Truth in ;love, unto Christ...that's the point