Author: Jonathan Neville

Uncategorized

#givethanks

On this blog, we’re grateful for the restoration of the Gospel through prophets, and we believe the teachings of those prophets.

We’re also grateful for the Book of Mormon and the abundant evidence the corroborates and vindicates the teachings of the prophets.

Source: About Central America

Uncategorized

Sports millionaires and homelessness, side-by-side

The consensus values of society in Utah are featured on the cover of the Deseret News, November 22, 2020.

(click to enlarge)

Society today: big homeless problems, foster care in crisis, and a 24-year-old basketball player gets a 5-year deal with $195.6 million with a team owned by a 42-year-old who paid $1.66 billion for the team.

_____

Alternative consensus:

18 And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.

(Moses 7:18)

3 And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift.
(4 Nephi 1:3)

Source: Book of Mormon Concensus

Uncategorized

Called by the ancients "Cumorah"

There are still members of the M2C citation cartel who insist Joseph adopted a false narrative about the New York Cumorah that was started by unknown early Church members. We’ll discuss that more soon.

In the meantime, though, we should take another look at how Joseph first learned the name Cumorah.

Readers here know that, according to his mother, Joseph referred to the hill where he found the plates as “Cumorah” in early 1827. This was before he obtained the plates and before he translated anything. He could only have learned that name from Moroni.

We’ve seen that Parley P. Pratt said the “ancients” called the hill Cumorah.

Here is how David Whitmer explained it in his 1881 interview with the Kansas City Journal.

“Did Joseph Smith ever relate to you the circumstances of his finding the plates?”

“Yes, he told me that he first found the plates in the year 1823; that during the fall of 1823 he had a vision, an angel appearing to him three times in one night and telling him that there was a record of an ancient people deposited in a hill near his father’s house, called by the ancients `Cumorah,’ situated in the township of Manchester, Ontario County, N. Y. The angel pointed out the exact spot, and, sometime after, he went and found the records or plates deposited in a stone box in the hill, just as had been described to him by the angel. It was some little time, however, before the angel would allow Smith to remove the plates from their place of deposit.”  

This is yet another specific historical reference that our M2C friends will have to insist was wrong. That list keeps getting longer…

Source: Letter VII

Uncategorized

Changing, unity, and consensus

Anyone who seeks unity and consensus must first ask, what am I willing to give up for the cause? Have I ever changed my mind about something important when I learned new facts, reconsidered priorities, or gained new wisdom?

Regarding Book of Mormon historicity, for decades I accepted what LDS scholars taught about the Mesoamerican/two Cumorahs theory (M2C). I accepted M2C because my CES and BYU teachers taught it, and I assumed they were the experts who had studied it. 

Only later in life did I realize they had led me to disbelieve the prophets. Then, when I looked into Church history and relevant sciences for myself, I discovered that the prophets were correct all along.

So I changed my mind.

It wasn’t easy. It required some work to reorient my worldview on this issue. 

I have plenty of M2C critics who resort to ad hominem and other logical errors to defend M2C. And that’s fine; we can all believe whatever we want. 

By now, it’s obvious the M2C scholars and their employees and followers are driven by bias confirmation, not any pursuit of truth. 

They made up their minds when they adopted the mark of M2C as their logo, which has been used by FARMS, the Maxwell Institute, and Book of Mormon Central.

There is no possibility of unity and consensus on this issue so long as one side (M2C) repudiates the teachings of the prophets and the other side embraces the teachings of the prophets.

_____ 

From Naval:

Everybody wants to change others. Nobody wants to be changed.

https://twitter.com/naval/status/1327509797294358529

Also:

It’s easier to change yourself than to change the world … Live the life you want other people to live.

From the comments:

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” ~ Leo Tolstoy

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

Rumi

The internal dialog going in our head justifies our own thoughts, behaviours and actions. So we think we are right. When looking at others, we see only their actions. So we often think others are wrong or have done things the way they should not have.

Vik Shukla

Far easier to demand someone to change than to go through that uncomfortable process yourself. One requires work, other requires nothing.


Source: Book of Mormon Concensus