This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
Different people have different parts and pieces of truth. You don’t either know everything or know nothing. The LDS church does not claim to have a monopoly on truth. The LDS church claims to have additional scripture, and modern prophets to clarify doctrine and administer ordinances.
| In his Lectures on Faith, Joseph Smith explained that faith is something every living person uses to find truth. People use it all the time. The important thing with the LDS church, he explained, is that we priesthood leaders who can administer ordinances. “There is no salvation between the two lids of the Bible without a legal administrator.” The important difference between churches is which one has the rightful priesthood. Churches Without Priesthood Authority Still Have Truth – CES Letter complains: |
“Every major religion has members who claim the same thing: God or God’s spirit bore witness to them that their religion, prophet/pope/leads, book(s), and teachings are true.” (CES Letter)
Yes, and every member of every religion is right about some things and wrong about some things. This certainly applies to Mormons. But is this unique to religious people? No. Part of being human is being wrong some of the time about what you think you know. Should we just immediately reject everything people say because sometimes people are wrong?
“Just as it would be arrogant of a FLDS, Jehovah Witness, Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, or Muslim to deny a Latter-Day Saint’s spiritual experience, and testimony of the truthfulness of Mormonism, it would likewise be arrogant of a Latter-day Saint to deny their spiritual experiences and testimonies.” (CES Letter)
How does this apply only to religious people? Doesn’t this apply to everyone? Isn’t it likewise arrogant to call a UFO believer a liar or tell the University of Utah that they didn’t invent cold fusion? It is foolish to just believe someone’s “testimony” without good evidence, and it is also foolish to just dismiss it as impossible without ever considering it. Mormons are no different.
If Joseph Smith was a real prophet, that doesn’t make everything he ever said true, but it does make his prophesies and leadership of the church true. This is what we mean by “true church.” Can the Pope be God’s prophet and Joseph Smith God’s prophet at the same time? No. And one can determine through prayer and the faith process which one is the prophet.
Can a person mistakenly think they know someone is a prophet? Of course, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know anything. It is illogical to say Catholics can’t have spiritual experiences and testimonies if they don’t have “true” priesthood leadership. It is also illogical to say they can’t be wrong about anything if they do have true priesthood leadership.
The preacher who says you should just believe everything he says is no different than the scientist who says you should just believe his global warming predictions because he is an expert. Nobody is arrogantly asking Catholics to just accept Joseph Smith is a prophet without any evidence. Nobody in the church says their testimonies should be accepted as proof that the church is true. The purpose of listening to a testimony is to persuade a person to look into it and find out for themselves–to try the experiment of faith. It would be ridiculous to equate testimony with truth, because, yes, people’s testimonies of stuff are often not true.
Testimonies come from enlightenment and external, tangible answers to prayer: miracles. Is it possible for one person to be enlightened about one truth and someone else to be enlightened about another? No. But it is possible for a person to incorrectly think they have been enlightened. This is why one should not rely on another person’s testimony of their enlightenment. Find out for yourself.
Who is to say my enlightenment is right and another person’s is wrong? I’m not asking you assume mine is right without any evidence. I’m suggesting you should find out for yourself.
What would be a superior alternative to learning truth? Well, previously, CES Letter said Joseph Smith failed a test of truth when he got duped into “translating” forged Kinderhook plates. But the problem with this is CES Letter is considering a brief comparison of two characters on the plates with the Egyptian papyrus “translating.” If a modern Egyptologist briefly remarks on a character of a document that turns out to be a forgery, does that destroy all his credibility as an Egyptologist? Of course not. Likewise, Joseph Smith was not a wizard who could magically tell a forgery just by briefly looking at it. It is illogical to assume Joseph Smith was wrong about everything because of something William Clayton once wrote in his journal. CES Letter makes all kinds of logical blunders in their method for finding truth.
So, the frame of this argument is wrong. A testimony of the gospel doesn’t mean you magically know everything. The prophet can’t magically tell a forgery just by looking at it. A member of another church is not evil or wrong about everything either. All churches are right about some things. Mormons have some wrong opinions. The “true” church is one that directs people to the best principles and manifests spiritual truth in word and deed, through divine authority to conduct ordinances.
CES Letter Logical Fallacies
| Falsehood | CES Letter makes a list of people who called themselves prophet. Matthew Philip Gill calls himself “Prophet Seer, Revelator and Translator.” CES Letter adds extra commas in this quote to make it look more like the Mormon title for our prophet. But a “prophet seer” is different from a “prophet and seer.” |
| Repetition | CES Letter repeats this narrative that religions believe different things and that means others are wrong. |
| False Comparison | CES Letter compares what RLDS believed in 1975 with what other sects believe in today. Why doesn’t CES Letter compare what RLDS believe in today? Because that would lose credibility that they might be the ‘right’ church. |
| False Dilemma | This entire argument is a faulty “either/or” assumption. Everybody knows some amount of truth. Some people could be wrong about something and other people right about something. CES Letter uses the word “testimony” when referring to something a Mormon claims to “know.” They do this to disassociate a Mormon’s claim of knowledge with an average person’s claim of knowledge. But actually, a testimony is just a presentation of what a person claims to know, no different than a college lecture or school thesis paper. |
| Shifting Goalposts | CES Letter starts off talking about what “every major religion” claims, and then subtly shifts to tiny sects with small handfuls of members. This leaves the audience thinking a major religion with millions or billions of members has as much credibility as a tiny cult. |
| No True Scotsman | CES Letter brings up splinter sects from the Mormon church, as if the existence of splinter sects means Mormonism somehow loses credibility. |
| Ad Hominem | CES Letter calls Mormons “arrogant” for saying other religions might have some untruth. |
| Guilt By Association | Maybe in 1975 the FLDS had some similarities with the LDS, but don’t have plants have mostly the same DNA as humans? Two things can be closely similar yet have important differences. A little bit of untruth can make a huge difference. A person can “bear testimony” of a whole lot of truth, yet have some parts of his religion that are not true. The Pope, Dalai Lama, and Mormon President are probably very similar. |
Alma 32 says we gain knowledge beginning with hope and by testing a hypothesis. This is a long, gradual process where one proves every claim through testing cause and effect.
“Now, as I said concerning faith—that it was not a perfect knowledge—even so it is with my words. Ye cannot know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a perfect knowledge. But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words…. And now, behold, because ye have tried the experiment, and planted the seed, and it swelleth and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, ye must needs know that the seed is good… for ye know that the word hath swelled your souls, and ye also know that it hath sprouted up, that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your mind doth begin to expand. O then, is not this real? I say unto you, Yea, because it is light; and whatsoever is light, is good, because it is discernible, therefore ye must know that it is good.”
In this explanation of faith turning into knowledge, we find a complex and profound process which applies to all knowledge. This is the nature of a testimony of anything. It is alright to bear a testimony of something you only “hope” for, because that is the beginning of the process.
Plato’s Four Degrees Of Knowledge – Greek philosopher Plato said there are four degrees of knowledge, which he explained in a parable:
In his parable, Plato said knowledge starts with mere allusion to truth like a puppet show casting shadows upon a cave wall. This is the “hope” Alma speaks of. Then, a person turns around and sees the fire projecting the shadows. This is when a person gains a rhetorical belief or conviction of the source behind allusions. Next, they walk out the door of the cave they are in and see how the same principle of light and shadow operates all around us. When Plato calls this a “mathematical” understanding, he means this is a person understanding the nature of operation. As Joseph Smith put it, this is understanding the character of God and a knowledge that your own character is in alignment with it. Finally, a person fully understands that the sun is the source of all visible objects. This is the use of reason with which we approach divinity. Mormonism is different from Platonism in that the visible realm overlaps the invisible realm. The allusionary puppets that we started out with are not tossed aside as we exit the cave, but fundamental seeds of knowledge that are part of our spirit.
So when a young child gets up in Sacrament meeting as says they “know the church is true,” this is not a false statement. Alma even says there are cases where “little children do have words given unto them” that can direct people to “the first place” of gaining knowledge or the first stage of hope. Children are indeed able to visibly see the cause and effects of the church’s truth and have a simple understanding, like a puppet play. They can experience how following commandments lead to blessings and see how gospel principles make people virtuous.
Dehumanizing – CES Letter starts out talking about major religions, as if their “testimonies” are different than how everyone else knows things. Why use the word “testimonies” instead of “knowledge?” The implication is that spiritual knowledge is different than normal knowledge, but that isn’t true. The Mormon method for gaining knowledge is the same way people gain knowledge of anything, as Joseph Smith explained in his Lectures on Faith.
CES Letter goes on to disassociate Mormons with everyone else and associate them with tiny cults. It is dehumanizing, especially considering this argument immediately follows CES Letter‘s other incredibly dehumanizing arguments.
This argument attacks the very basis of faith. Does CES Letter think everybody should be distrusted about anything they say because sometimes people are wrong? Of course not, but when it comes to spiritual claims they make this assumption. Skeptics say they want physical proof, but where is the physical proof that Joseph Smith tried to translate the Kinderhook plates, which CES Letter claims? There is only a tiny quote which they take out of context, just like there are written claims for Joseph Smith’s spiritual claims.
In contrast to faith, Marxists approach dialectic by deconstructing things that contradict with their ideology of universal salvation. This is the big difference between us and anti-Mormons. They alter their environment to fit their ideology; we test dialectic and nurture the source of enlightenment within ourselves to discover ideology.
So why do I need to try to convince CES Letter that the testimonies I bear are from sincere knowledge or belief? The burden is on CES Letter to prove that Mormons lie about what they know. If they don’t want to use the faith process to gain enlightenment, then the burden is on them to present real evidence. It is not up to Mormons to convince you of truth. Find it out yourself.
Well that is the whole point of CES Letter I suppose. This is a collection of evidence they have found that Mormonism isn’t true. They are willing to believe fringe quotes that they read on the internet that Joseph Smith used magical rocks to translate the gold plates are real legitimate quotes, but when it comes to spirituality, suddenly knowledge cannot cross over to the realm of invisible truth. I mean, why is a quote that RLDS members fabricated decades after Joseph Smith more reliable than something we read in the Book of Mormon? Also, has CES Letter really thought through the dilemma their belief in this quote poses: If Joseph Smith was witnessed using magic rocks, how did he produce the Book of Mormon with his head in a hat?
So there seems to be a bias about what CES Letter is willing to allow as evidence. When it comes to anything spiritual, it is immediately dismissed as superstition.
Superstition – The difference between faith and superstition is very obvious. Superstition takes a visual phenomenon and gives a scientifically implausible spiritual explanation. Zeus throws lightning bolts to the ground when he gets angry. Faith is the other way around. It starts out with spiritual explanation and is confirmed with a physical phenomena. Abraham reasoned that his father’s idols were phony, and then he prayed for deliverance and God saved him in a wonderful physical miracle.
This argument against people bearing testimony makes it sound testimony is based on other people’s testimonies, like some kind of urban legend that spreads among the gullible. This argument equates knowledge with the bearing testimony of that knowledge. No, they are not the same thing! A testimony is a spark that helps people plant the seed of faith, yes, but a testimony does not last long unless it comes from their personal relationship with God, as any missionary will tell you. It is a person performing a shadow play on a cave wall to convince the audience to look into the issue themselves.
What does CES Letter want as a method for discovering truth? Well, just look at how they present the “facts.” DNA analysis shows Native Americans originated from Asia rather than Israel–no explanation. Just accept it. Elephants and goats did not exist in Book of Mormon times–no explanation. Just accept it. They appeal to truths they think are self-evidence or the ‘scientific community consensus’ rather than explaining anything or providing evidence. This tells me that they want a prayer book, a script, a school textbook of beliefs to believe and behaviors to foolow instead of discovering and reasoning through truth for themselves. Maybe all American DNA did come from Asia and maybe elephants didn’t exist in America, but you can’t say you “know” these things until you have enveloped yourself in the evidence and you can stand in front of a crowd and “bear testimony” about it.
Of course, discounting the Book of Mormon based on one or two cherry-picked “anachronisms” isn’t real science. The scientific thing to do would be to find an object in ancient America that the Book of Mormon claims was never there and then prove that it was in fact there. That would be a solid argument. Actual science should be investigated and celebrated by Mormons and non-Mormons alike, instead of just generalizing from cherry-picked data–because the scientific method of developing a hypothesis is almost exactly the same as the Alma 32 method for gaining spiritual knowledge.
The narrative that knowledge is gained by copying what you read in a textbook does not advance a person toward godhood. That line of thinking points toward the Plan of Satan, where everything is spelled out for us to follow and salvation is universal. This argument boosts the narrative that we should follow Satan’s plan. In God’s plan, we gain power through faith and gain knowledge of the vast universe of invisible truth–not just the truth of the church or that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but of anything that is invisible but useful for our progression.