Does he always tell the
truth? | This is one of a series of web pages I created between 2001and 2006. I was angry and frustrated at the LDS Church. Since then I have moved on and calmed down. So please remember, if you read these pages, that they reflect my past and not my present feelings. Thanks for your understanding! - Chris Tolworthy |
Does he always tell the
truth? Why do I say these mean things? | The top ten | 11-20 | 21-30 | 31 - 40
Another selection from "Stand a Little Taller."
31. Does the church teach tolerance?
32. How real are tithing blessings?
33. Does a strong religious faith create a stronger society?
34. Did permissiveness ever produce greatness?
35. DNA evidence and Lamanites in North America
36. Does belief in the Fatherhood of God end wars?
37. Does Hinckley know the temple covenants?
38. Pretend you are happy when you are not
39. Joseph Smith's Virtue
40. Arrogance
"We are taught as members of the church to be tolerant." (page 53)
Tolerant of homosexuality? Tolerant of ear rings and tattoos and clothes that expose the skin? Tolerant of Sunday clothing that is not a white shirt and tie? Tolerant of brief nudity in movies? Tolerant of BYU professors who question aspects of the church? Tolerant of materials that openly criticize the church? Tolerant of swearing? Tolerant of anything that is considered a sin? Tolerant of what, exactly?
"Pay your tithing. Put the Lord to the test. ... He will bless you and bring joy into your lives and blessings that are as real as anything on this earth.'' (page 34)
As real as money? The famous passage on tithing, the one in Malachi that is repeated several times in other scriptures, refers to material blessings. Crops growing, resistance to pestilence, etc. Where are those real, material blessings? And if the blessings have been changed to "joy," why does Utah use more Prozac than anywhere else?
Hinckley says we should test the Lord, and the blessings are as real as anything on this earth, but where are they? In my own life I put this to the test. I paid my tithing all my life (until age 34) and I just ended up bankrupt and with debts roughly equal to what I had paid in tithing over the years. No wonder that Utah, the Prozac capital of America, is also the bankruptcy capital of America.
"People who carry in their hearts a strong conviction concerning the living reality of the Almighty and their accountability to Him for what they do with their lives are far less likely to become enmeshed in problems that inevitably weaken society." (page 75)
"Permissiveness never produced greatness." (page 89)
Let us be clear what permissiveness means. According to dictionary.com, permissive means "Granting or inclined to grant permission; tolerant or lenient." Earlier Hinckley said that the church was in favor of tolerance, but here he speaks against it.
Did permissiveness ever create greatness? Nobody is arguing for tolerance of every possible evil, just as nobody (I hope!) is arguing for enslaving everyone. But a little tolerance, a little permissiveness, has indeed created greatness. Let us look at Jesus for example. Jesus grew up in a permissive household, judged by the standards of the time. His mother was pregnant before she was married. When Jesus twelve (the only detail we know of his childhood) he disobeyed his parents (when they wanted him to come with them) and openly criticized them (saying that Joseph was not his real father). When Jesus grew older, he did not spend his years working hard as a carpenter, he wandered around his favorite lake telling stories. He refused to condemn the woman taken in adultery, instead taking a gentler line. He did things that, according to the traditions of the day, were breaking the Sabbath. If you don't like permissiveness, you would have been on the side of the Pharisees and against Jesus.
Historically, the world awoke from the Dark Ages because people became tolerant of new ideas. The renaissance in particular relied on a class of educated people who had time to sit and think If they had been busy working in the fields they would never have had time to change the world. All changes require blue skies thinking and new ideas. So the greatest blessings to humanity are the result of a degree of permissiveness..
Hinckley says it is.[ From the German reporter's interview:]
Reporter: "Now, Mr. President, one of…one question which is a little bit complicated for me to understand, but I heard it and one colleague asked me to ask it. What will be your position when DNA analysis will show that in the history never have been an immigration from Israel to the North…to North America? It could be that the scientists will find out…"
Hinckley: "Well, it hasn't happened. That hasn't been determined yet. All I can say is that's speculated. No one really knows the answer to that, not at this point."
This is a very strange thing to say because Hinckley has spent most his life in church public relations of some sort, so he should be aware of the facts. He was specifically asked about North America. The reporter was being kind, as if the question had not yet been proven. Yet the DNA evidence against North America as the Book of Mormon location is devastating. Even the apologists, FARMS, have accepted that, and they will not try to defend a North American setting for the Book of Mormon.
Even if we allow the FARMS theory that the Lamanites were hiding in some remote corner of Central America, the DNA evidence is not "speculated" as Hinckley said. It has been established beyond reasonable doubt by the highest standards of scientific inquiry in peer-reviewed journals. DNA destroys the Book of Mormon as a historical record. To say that the issue "hasn't been determined" is like saying the earth is still flat because a few people still believe it.
"There is no need in any land for conflict between diverse groups of any kind. Let there be taught in the homes of people that we are all children of God, our Eternal Father, and that as surely as there is fatherhood, there can and must be brotherhood." (page 117)
Thousands of years of religious wars show that religion is not the answer to war. Trade is one answer. Global organizations and treaties are another answer. But religion is often part of the problem.
Religions are fundamentally unable to unite people because they are based on faith, not reason. The Jews and Palestinians are brothers, descended from the same father Abraham. Though they call him by different names, they worship the same God - the Koran refers positively to the Jewish scriptures and includes some of the same stories. Yet the Jewish God says "this is your land" and the Palestinian God says "this is your land." Does that makes wars less likely or more likely?
Or let us bring this closer to home. Elsewhere in Stand a Little Taller, Hinckley says that God chose America and God guided its discovery and progress. In other words, God drove the Indians out and killed them and destroyed their culture and way of life. That was war. The Indians believed that God (in their sense of the word) was their father. The Christians believed that God was their father. God gave the land to both of them, and this led to war. Where was the brotherhood then?
"The temple is a place of covenants. In the house of the Lord, we take upon ourselves covenants and obligations regarding lives of purity and virtue and goodness and truth and unselfishness to others." (page 124)
Hinckley makes it sound like you promise to do good to others, like in the Sermon on the Mount. But temple covenants are not like that at all. They are all inward looking, all about the church. This is what you covenant in the temple. Don't blame me for talking about secret temple covenants - Hinckley raised the topic, I didn't.
- Covenant 1: Obedience to God. Before 1990, wives would also promise obedience to husbands.
- Covenant 2: Never reveal certain rituals. This is repeated more than once at different times in the endowment. Other covenants are not repeated, so we can conclude that this is the most important covenant.
- Covenant 3: To avoid light-mindedness, laughing loudly, saying bad stuff about "The Lord's anointed" and taking God's name in vain.
- Covenant 4: No sex outside marriage.
- Covenant 5: Give all your time and money to the Mormon church.
Contrary to what Hinckley said about "purity and virtue and goodness and truth and unselfishness to others" there is nothing about helping others. Nothing like the golden rule. Nothing like the Beatitudes. Nothing positive or uplifting or loving or kind or noble:
There is no purity in temple covenants. Obedience is not pure, because the church tells us to do bad things. Secrecy is not pure - pure hearted people have nothing to hide. Saying nice things about Mormon leaders is not pure, because our silence would support their lies. Avoiding sex outside marriage is the closest we come to purity, but the church is so heavy handed with its rules on sex that all the fun and passion is killed. That is not purity, that is emotional death.
There is no virtue in temple covenants. Blind obedience is not a virtue, as it takes freedom and shuts down the mind. Secrecy is not a virtue, but a sign of weakness. Praising misguided men is not a virtue. Abstinence is not a virtue - virtue is doing good, not just the absence of doing bad. And giving your time and money to the Mormon church is certainly not a virtue!
There is no goodness and truth in temple covenants, for the same reasons.
And there is no unselfishness in temple covenants. Obedience may sound unselfish, but it means obedience to the church. The church is like a big social club. When you help your leaders and give money to the church you are only helping your friends. It is highly appropriate that these promises are made in an expensive building to which non-members are banned, while someone else has to look after your kids. Unselfish? How? And the most frequent covenant is to keep secrets. How exactly is that unselfish?
"No sex outside marriage" may sound noble, but it is also selfish. It is all part of an obsession with purity. Sexual purity is all about the self. Anything that conflicts with this inward view is banned. Not just sex outside of marriage, but even some kinds of sex within marriage are banned. (For example, oral sex is purely unselfish - it does nothing for the giver and has no other purpose than to make the other person happy. So in an infamous letter from 1980 it was banned. If there is anything sexy, spontaneous or purely unselfish in sex, the church seeks to own it or ban it.
"Don't be gloomy., Even if you are not happy, put a smile on your face." (page 308)
Is this honest?
"I bear solemn testimony of the divinity of Joseph Smith's call... of the virtue of his life..." (page 374)
Joseph Smith slept with other men's wives. Read "in Sacred Loneliness" for details. Or click here for the nature of the church that he created. Is that virtue?
"There is no place for arrogance in our lives." (Page 363.)
This comes from a man who says his church is the only true church on the face of the earth. That God has chosen his church above all others, and members have the duty to convert the whole world, and anyone who does not listen has rejected the truth. (The word "arrogant" comes from "arrogate," meaning to claim rights without any good reason.
Every faithful Mormon refuses to accept even the possibility that there is anything better. If that is not arrogance, what is? Clearly then, there is a central place for arrogance in every Mormon's life.
I think I have wasted enough time on Hinckley's words. I could have made this list much, much longer. But I think 40 examples are enough to answer the question, "Does Gordon B. Hinckley always tell the truth?"
Why do I say these mean things? | The top ten | 11-20 | 21-30 | 31 - 40