Posted on 10/25/2010 6:01:00 AM PDT by Colofornian
Some Non Defenders Non Defend by claiming what we say has been covered over & over @ links they provide...
These Non Defenders claim these are Non issues...
...and that all you need to do is click, pop in a word in the search, click again and voila!
...needles of wisdom just pour forth from your computer screen...
Some Non Defenders claim one such haystack link worth investigatin' is fairlds.org...
...So when you take up this defective deflective challenge...
...and put in a phrase like Adam-God [re: Brigham Young's teaching that the first man, Adam, was God] in the search box of that Web site, the second entry that pops up from that search is Church doctrine/Repudiated concepts/Adam-God [This is FAIR's WIKI format attempt to address some things]
Some Non Defenders claim such entries at their links both "address" and "answer" these claims...
...yet when you check under the hood of this lemon, you get varied Lds apologists' opinion about Brigham's "Adam is God" teaching...
...like: Brigham was wrong [Joseph Smith said the very first principle of the Mormon gospel was to know the character of God, (King Follet funeral sermon), yet Brigham couldn't get a kindergarten identity issue down in not being able to distinguish Adam from God?]
Some Non Defenders claim such entries at their links reinforce for us such attractive snapshots of Brigham Young, such as Lds apologist Van Hale's concession that Brigham was mistaken about who Adam was and that Adam, after all, was a complex doctrinal subject.
Some Non Defenders claim such entries at their links love to cite Lds apostle letters from almost 30 years ago, letters which concede THAT BRIGHAM YOUNG, CONTRADICTED BRIGHAM YOUNG, AND THE ISSUE BECOMES ONE OF WHICH BRIGHAM YOUNG WE WILL BELIEVE. [Lds "apostle" Bruce R. McConkie, 1981 letter cited on link above]
Therefore, instead of Non Defenders just telling you outright that Lds apostles concede that...
Brigham Young taught falsely who God was...
But didn't always identify Adam as God...
Therefore, Brigham Young was theologically schizophrenic...
And that Brigham Young was 100% untrustworthy, because we don't know (still) which Brigham Young to believe?
...he makes you click twice, type in a word, and read an entire Mormon FAIR Wiki entry!!!
Some Non Defenders claim such entries at their links don't all agree what Mormon apologists should do about Brigham's out-of-tune glitches as if you the spiritual inquirer just warm up and tingle all inside whenever you hear admissions from the faithful that their flock front man glitches on basic Genesis quizzes like, Who was Adam? But, not wanting to psychoanalyze Brigham Young as spiritually schizophrenic, what's a Mormon apologist to do?
Well, that narrows down the conclusions left for the average Mormon apologist, if you follow the links provided by some Non Defenders.
Why, if Brigham wasn't schizophrenic, what then?
Final options?...
The summations below precede the bracketed {actual quotations found @ one of Non Defender's links -- FAIR's WIKI entry on Adam-God being "repudiated"}
#1 Brigham was PR-challenged {A final explanation is that Brigham Young believed and taught Adam-God...but he...didn't live long enough to 'develop' the teaching [read: spin] into something that could be reconciled with LDS scripture...}
#2 Brigham inspired a LOT of Mormon agnostic followers about who God was: {We don't know...In this view, we simply don't know what Brigham Young meant...}
#3 Brigham's plain English was non-interpretable minus either a decoder ring, or dark hat, or the Joe Smith special urim and thummim {"We simply don't know what Brigham Young meant."...why that could only mean they don't know plain English!!!}
#4 Brigham's revelation receptor was glitch prone comparable to the Ford Pinto of a later era {An anomaly is a glitch.... A classic example of an anomaly in the LDS tradition is the so-called "Adam-God theory." -- BYU professor Stephen Robinson}
#5 Brigham inspired in the average Mormon apologist this confessional credo: How do we Mormons deal with these questions? We don't. We abandon them...like we abandon you the inquirer...like we abandon the questions on FR. {So how do Latter-day Saints deal with the phenomenon? WE DON'T; WE SIMPLY SET IT ASIDE. BYU professor Stephen Robinson}
Such gems of wisdom await you all...all at the multiple click of a mouse!
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