Author: Jonathan Neville

“By instructing students how to learn, unlearn and relearn, a powerful new dimension can be added to education…Tomorrow’s illiterate will not be the man who can’t read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn.”

Technically, there are problems with this statement. For example, those who cannot read in the 21st century are still illiterate. But Toffler’s claim suggests that a person with obsolete knowledge has just as much a disadvantage as a person who cannot read. Maybe more so.

The learn, unlearn, relearn paradigm explains not only how we improve by adapting to rapidly changing knowledge and understanding, but also how we improve by converting to different ways of thinking and believing.

The paradigm can be applied in two ways. People learn (school, from parents, peers, school, etc.) When new knowledge comes along, if they are flexible and open, they unlearn what they had learned and relearn the new knowledge.

Everyone in the world has learned, from a young age, a framework for understanding the world. They learn language, customs, culture, and values, often (but not always) within a particular religious context.

As we mature, we learn new things that force us into a choice: we can incorporate new things into our existing framework, or we can unlearn that framework to adapt to the new things.

A couple of scriptures help apply these ideas:

54 And your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief, and because you have treated lightly the things you have received—
(Doctrine and Covenants 84:54)

the end

In the March issue, he discussed censorship.

I doubt Brother Nibley intended this article as a guide for future generations of Church historians and self-appointed “experts” on the Book of Mormon, but these two groups of intellectuals have managed to adopt each of the techniques Nibley discussed.

Censorship example from Nibley’s article

In the Church today, you’ll find lots of members who are convinced that M2C and SITH are “true.” If you talk with them for just a few minutes, you’ll discover they are poorly educated. It’s “zeal without knowledge” in the worst sense.

By “poorly educated” I mean they are taught only selected facts, mingled with the theories of the M2C and SITH intellectuals. They are never taught all the relevant facts of Church history, let alone the relevant extrinsic evidence, but they think they are educated.

I know this personally because for decades, I relied on what the “experts” in CES and BYU had taught me. I had to educate myself because the M2C citation cartel is impervious to alternative interpretations and perspectives.

The worst of the lot, Book of Mormon Central, continues to censor anything that contradicts or even challenges M2C and SITH.

I’m not writing about those few Latter-day Saints who have made informed decisions. We can all believe whatever we want. People who make informed decisions based on identical facts can still completely disagree. That’s a separate topic we will discuss later. Here, I’m discussing people who do not make informed decisions because they are uninformed, or misinformed.

Often, the more ignorant they are, the more strongly they are convinced they are right.
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If you’re among the many Latter-day Saints who

– accept M2C and SITH

but

– have never heard of Letter VII,
– don’t realize the Gospel Topics Essays don’t even quote what Joseph and Oliver taught, and
– think that Saints is accurate and complete history,

you ought to educate yourself so you can make informed decisions.
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Today, much of this conversation takes place online, and the conversations are dominated by the most ignorant people in society, which are young people. That’s not an insult; it’s just a fact. All adults have been 20-something. By the time we’re 40, we realize how ignorant we were when we were 20. As we age, we gain experience and knowledge.

College kids typically think they know a lot, but all they know is what their professors have told them and what they’ve read (which was written by someone else). Most of them stick with whatever they’ve been taught because they trust and admire their professors.  This seems to be especially true among LDS, whose teachers in CES and BYU have a special fiduciary responsibility that, in many cases, they breach by poorly educating their students.

I’ve discussed these issues with many Church members, all around the world. Most readers here have seen examples on online in social media, publications such as Meridian Magazine, etc. Let’s look at some specific examples.
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Many members are learning Church history from the Saints books. These books, particularly volume 1, were written to accommodate both M2C and SITH. The authors created fake history to achieve their objectives. Not only did they censor Cumorah, but they replaced the original language in source documents with new terms that reflect their revisionist history.

Here’s one of many examples:
http://saintsreview.blogspot.com/2020/07/saints-teaches-seer-stones-instead-of.html

Consequently, current and future generations of members of the Church are indoctrinated into this revisionist history instead of learning the actual history.

The tragedy: Church historians are fully aware of these problems yet refuse to correct at least the digital versions of these books.
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Based on the Times and Seasons

M2C believers are likewise poorly educated. Apart from the handful of M2C scholars (and their employees) who have been promoting M2C and know better, their followers simply do not know the facts of Church history and relevant sciences.

The basic premise of M2C is that Joseph Smith was an ignorant speculator who misled the Church about the New York Cumorah until he read the Stephens and Catherwood travel books about Central America in 1841 and then wrote about them in anonymous editorials in the 1842 Times and Seasons.

These editorials led certain scholars to develop interpretations of the text that “fit” Mesoamerica. Then they scoured Mayan culture to find “correspondences” that “fit” the Book of Mormon text, but they usually make them fit only by changing the definition of Book of Mormon terms (e.g., a “horse” means a “tapir,” a “tower” means a “massive stone pyramid,” “north means “west,” etc.).

Based on the Times and Seasons

Ironically, the editorials say nothing about Cumorah. Letter VII was published by Joseph’s brothers before and after these editorials were published. Numerous prophets and apostles have reaffirmed Letter VII’s teaching of the New York Cumorah.

[If any readers here are ignorant of this, here’s a summary:
http://www.lettervii.com/p/byu-packet-on-cumorah.html]

The only conflict between the anonymous editorials and the New York Cumorah is in the minds of the M2C scholars and their followers.

Consequently, M2C scholars have successfully kept their followers ignorant of Letter VII. They have employed the Academic Cycle and managed to de-correlate the New York Cumorah from recent Church publications, manuals, videos, etc.

Based on the Times and Seasons

The most fun example is the blatant revisionist history in Saints. The most colorful example is the fantasy map BYU uses to teach students that the Book of Mormon took place in a fictional setting, based on the M2C interpretation. There are plenty of examples to go around.

M2C believers are taught that these Times and Seasons articles outweigh the teachings of the prophets. They are never taught that Joseph never acknowledged, cited, or even referred to these articles. Lately, they are never taught that D&C 128:20 even exists.

Historians disagree about the extent to which Joseph participated in the Times and Seasons during 1842, and that’s fine. Some of us think he was the nominal editor based on content and other evidence. Others think he was the active editor, based on the boilerplate at the end of each issue that said the paper was Edited, Printed and Published by Joseph Smith, Jr.

Everyone agrees that Joseph was merely the nominal printer, meaning he did not operate the printing press. Everyone agrees that throughout his life, Joseph wrote very little himself; even the “History of Joseph Smith” was written by his scribes, as was most of his own journal.

Nevertheless, the M2C intellectuals insist Joseph was the active editor of the Times and Seasons, personally writing the anonymous editorials and personally approving of everything published in the paper. Their followers accept this, having no idea about the facts the contradict this theory.

An awesome aspect of all of this is that even the M2C intellectuals disagree with some of the major points of these editorials.

Here’s a passage from one of the anonymous editorials that no M2C intellectuals accept. If Lehi actually landed south of Panama, then M2C doesn’t work.

When we read in the Book of Mormon that Jared and his brother came on to this continent from the confusion and scattering at the Tower, and lived here more than a thousand years, and covered the whole continent from sea to sea, with towns and cities; and that Lehi went down by the Red Sea to the great Southern Ocean, and crossed over to this land and landed a little south of the Isthmus of Darien, and improved the country according to the word of the Lord, as a branch of the house of Israel, and then read such a goodly traditionary account, as the one below, we can not but think the Lord has a hand in bringing to pass his strange act, and proving the Book of Mormon true in the eyes of all the people.
(Times and Seasons III.22:922 ¶2)

More later.

It’s July 6th. Over the weekend, Americans celebrated the 4th of July, which is our Independence Day.

This is a good time to consider what Jonathan Edwards wrote in 1758 about America and the “more glorious work that should be in the latter ages of the Christian church.”

I posted it here:

https://dailyjonathanedwards.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-millennium-probably-to-dawn-in.html

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Separately, here’s a useful suggestion: turn off the news for a day or two.

The news industry has a business model that requires people to watch and read regularly. The more viewers and readers they get, the more money they get from advertisers. You are paying their salaries every time you tune in to their shows or click on their web pages.

The media knows people will watch and read more if they are alarmed, angry, upset, afraid, etc., so they focus on events that generate these emotions. In many cases, they create news to generate these emotions. The pundits do nothing but generate these emotions. They frame everything as a competition between left and right, anti- and pro-Trump, etc.

It’s outrage theater and we’re better off doing something other than paying for the performances.

Turn off the news, go exercise, and be grateful for all the blessings God has given you.

The 4th of July is a good time to review what Elder Orson Hyde taught about Moroni. Speaking on the 4th of July in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, Elder Hyde reiterated the teachings of the prophets that Moroni revealed to Joseph Smith “the history of the early inhabitants of this country.”

CELEBRATION OF THE FOURTH OF JULY.

An Address by Elder Orson Hyde, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, July 4, 1854.

(1854, OH Celebration • JD 6:367)

In those early and perilous times, our men were few, and our resources limited. 

Poverty was among the most potent enemies we had to encounter; yet our arms were successful; and it may not be amiss to ask here, by whose power victory so often perched on our banner? 

It was by the agency of that same angel of God that appeared unto Joseph Smith, and revealed to him the history of the early inhabitants of this country, whose mounds, bones, and remains of towns, cities, and fortifications speak from the dust in the ears of the living with the voice of undeniable truth. 

This same angel presides over the destinies of America, and feels a lively interest in all our doings. 

He was in the camp of Washington; and, by an invisible hand, led on our fathers to conquest and victory; and all this to open and prepare the way for the Church and kingdom of God to be established on the western hemisphere, for the redemption of Israel and the salvation of the world. …

Under the guardianship of this same angel, or Prince of America, have the United States grown, increased, and flourished, like the sturdy oak by the rivers of water.

(Orson Hyde, JD 6:368)

See also http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2020/05/this-country-vs-americas.html

For more information, here’s a great resource:

https://bookofmormonevidence.org/moroni-guardian-angel-of-america-holds-the-keys-to-the-stick-of-ephraim/

https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1272180537541656577