Posts Tagged ‘ Joseph Smith ’

Human brains naturally use locations in space and time to make sense of events. Why should we expect eternal spirits to follow that protocol? The question has always bothered me. What follows is speculation about a different way of looking at the relationship between the physical and the spiritual than the Restoration faiths adopted in [...]

While the Sundance Film Festival gets all the press, Utah County is also home to the LDS Film Festival.  I reviewed the schedule, and thought I would point out a few films that sound interesting at the Scera Theater in Orem, Utah. Wednesday – Opening night 7 pm – The Playbook It’s the story of [...]

John Dehlin and Richard Bushman spoke of the translation process in part 3 and part 4 of their interview back in 2007.  In the interview, Bushman says that the Church could do a better job in artwork of depicting the translation process, and Bushman states he does not know any evidence that states the Urim [...]

One topic I have not discussed in my 4 years of blogging is discrepancies in the First Vision accounts.  Basically, there are 4 accounts of the First Vision.  The account in the Pearl of Great Price is the last account, and comes from 1838.   John Dehlin and Richard Bushman discuss these variations in Part 2 [...]

It’s been over 16 months and 40+ posts since Hawk invited me to try my hand writing a guest post for Wheat and Tares, and I’m still plugging along.  With some of the recent posts and comments, it made me step back and wonder – why do I keep doing this?  This site has been [...]

A couple of months ago, while gathering up all of the data required to “render unto the IRS” and trying to feel better about all of the work involved in doing so, I ran across an interesting piece of Biblical literary criticism. It became even more interesting to me when I started thinking about the [...]

What is the Word of Wisdom?  From Mormon.org, we read that “our bodies are precious gifts from God.  We believe He has given us guidance about how best to take care of them.  He revealed a law of health, called the Word of Wisdom, to Joseph Smith in 1833.  The Word of Wisdom prohibits the [...]

Community of Christ does not follow its LDS cousins in having secret temple rituals. So I read last week’s post by Bored in Vernal, on the “Sacred Embrace As Five Points of Fellowship” with the curiosity of one who has never even been inside an LDS Temple. Much of the terminology was unfamiliar to me [...]

Today’s guest post is by Wayfarer. Joseph Smith approached both Helen Mar Kimball (14 years old) and Nancy Rigdon (19) to join him as his celestial wife, using in both cases the promise of exaltation if complied with, and something quite onerous if not.  Neither woman/girl wanted to accept the ‘principle.’  Helen Mar received a [...]

My 15 year old sister always gets told off by my mother when she prays.  The reason for this is that instead of saying “Thee,” “Thou,” or “Thy” (referred to as TTT from now on) she uses “you” and “your.”  My mother likes to quote these words of Spencer W. Kimball: “In all our prayers, it is well [...]

Will the church evolve to stop the train of apostasy? When the Sicans felt their religion had failed them, they burned their temples.

Last week I talked about the results of John Dehlin’s recent survey that showed that a leading cause of people leaving Mormonism has become the ready access to church history information on the internet.  Today I’d like to continue to evaluate the survey information. Oh Ye of Too Much Faith It seems that often those [...]

Recent articles in the media have pointed to the study of church history as being key to the loss of faith. What role does it actually play?

I recently read an excellent OP on By Common Consent by Brad titled Notes Toward a New Vision of the Prophet.  I’ve always had some contradictory thoughts about JS, and I’m not sure this changes them. JS does seem to be a megalomaniac and opportunist to me, someone who became increasingly blind to the consequences [...]

Not sure what to get for someone who knows everything about Mormon history?  Here’s a last minute gift-idea: The Nauvoo City Council and High Council Minutes.  The book is due to be released today and is edited by John Dinger.  This is the first time that the City Council Minutes have ever been available to [...]

As I was researching a post last summer on some of the organizations that have sprung up in the stead of the RLDS movement as fundamentalist alternatives to the Community of Christ, I discovered that a childhood friend had become one of the leading officials of one such organization, the Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of [...]

In 1969 Leonard Arrington asked 50 prominent Mormons to identify the “five most eminent intellectuals in Mormon history.” The list was published in Dialogue.  Twenty-four years later, Dialogue decided to run the survey again.  It was re-published a few month ago in the Deseret News, and it has been a favorite bloggernacle topic for the past few [...]

Newell Bringhurst’s book Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism is a fascinating look at the church’s relationship to black people from 1830 to 1980.  I wanted to share some impressions from the first few chapters. Some people have incorrectly asserted that early Mormons were abolitionists.  Abolitionists were seen as radicals back [...]

In my last post I gave some definitions of Autonomy, Intelligence, and Consciousness and discussed some possible implications with the intent of further discussing artificial intelligence. In this post, we’re going to dive a bit deeper into consciousness, and set the stage for a discussion of how conscious robots might emerge. Consciousness in Philosophy In [...]

“Brothers and Sisters.  I’d like to bear my testimony.  I don’t know this Church is true…” Have you ever heard a testimony like this?  And what would you think if someone got up next Fast Sunday and started their testimony like that?  Before getting into what a testimony like this might really be saying, I [...]