If I could ask them one question . . . Come Follow Me, Lesson 49

[annotatedbom]

For Come Follow Me, Lesson 49, Dec 14-20, 2020, Moroni 10

If I wanted to encourage thought and try to understand devout believers better, I might ask:
“How well does the Book of Mormon promise work?”

See the Things to consider for this lesson.

And, here’s a list of some other observations about this lesson’s reading.

This week's "If I Could Ask Them One Question" is my last critique of the Book of Mormon "Come Follow Me" lessons because next week the lesson is about Christmas and focuses on Jesus with Book of Mormon verses scattered throughout the book. You all have been wonderful to me.

May each of you make or find purpose in your life that brings you lasting joy,
A-Bom

[blazerb]

If I wanted to encourage thought and try to understand devout believers better, I might ask:
“How well does the Book of Mormon promise work?”

Badly. When I was eight, I interpreted it quite literally. It said that "the truth of all things" could be known. I was certain that if I read the BoM and prayed, I would be able to tell whether anything I heard was true or false. I realized early on that I was naïve. Even so, I realized quickly that praying to know if the BoM is true had spotty success at best. I just told myself that only a few people are sincere. I was so judgmental.

[moksha]

Has any writer of ancient history included a passage about the reader seeking to know if what they are about to read is truth or fiction before? This technique sounds more like The Princess Bride than the works of Herodotus or Thucydides. I use the example of The Princess Bride, which was a tale of the political intrigues of Florin and Guilder as recorded by the ancient scribe S. Morgenstern.

In actuality, it was a modern work written by William Goldman. Both The Princess Bride and the Book of Mormon featured animals of unusual size. In the case of the Book of Mormon, the tapirs were domesticated and as large as a horse. While a Church of Wesley and Buttercup never did materialize, Miracle Max continued his career much like Smith.

[Hagoth]

I read and re-read the BoM for decades and spent I-dunno-how-many hours on my knees trying to make Moroni's promise work.

Then I read B.H. Roberts' Studies in the Book of Mormon. I decided to pray about that book's conclusion that the BoM is a 19th century creation of a pious but naïve mind. And guess what? Wham! Burning in the bosom. WTF?

[wtfluff]

If I wanted to encourage thought and try to understand devout believers better, I might ask:
“How well does the Book of Mormon promise work?”

Badly. When I was eight, I interpreted it quite literally. It said that "the truth of all things" could be known. I was certain that if I read the BoM and prayed, I would be able to tell whether anything I heard was true or false. I realized early on that I was naïve. Even so, I realized quickly that praying to know if the BoM is true had spotty success at best. I just told myself that only a few people are sincere. I was so judgmental.

Then there's the folks like me who "Already knew it was True™" and never bothered with MORONi's promise...

[græy]

Then there's the folks like me who "Already knew it was True™" and never bothered with MORONi's promise...

This was mostly me too. I didn't really get an answer but then one day I heard that genius account of someone learning they weren't getting answers because they already knew. They just didn't know they knew, ya know?

Eventually, I learned to associate the smallest hint of a good/calm feeling with the spirit and thus the answer I had looked for. But of course there were good feelings in assuming it was true! That meant my life was based on superior knowledge and position relative to 99.9% of the world. That meant my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and so on for 6 generations were bad-ass recognizers and followers of truth in the face of daunting persecution. That meant that good would eventually win and my beloved family would spend eternity designing and building worlds together! Who wouldn't have good feelings when deluding themselves into buying that load?

Years later I discovered some of the things I had understood to be true because of the associated hint of good feeling were utterly, provably, completely, false.

Moroni's promise is a hollow religious platitude.

[Hagoth]

Then there's the folks like me who "Already knew it was True™" and never bothered with MORONi's promise...

Or the ones who really do try Moroni's promise but it doesn't work, so they fall back to the Plan B, "heck, I knew it was true all along."

One of my favorite sentiments is the missionary farewell talk where the tell you about how, after a full 10 minutes on their knees with no bosom heat they begin to panic, but get snatched out of the pit of despair by the realization that their testimony is so strong they don't even need a witness. They only made the effort in the first place because it dawned on them that if they were going to be peddling the BoM for two years they better get some personal credentials. I find that so fascinating because it was exactly the same "answer" that I got when I was a missionary, despite the fact that I was going around telling everyone ELSE that Moroni's promise would work for them. In retrospect, I felt a bit hypocritical about it at the time.

[deacon blues]

If I wanted to encourage thought and try to understand devout believers better, I might ask:
“How well does the Book of Mormon promise work?”

Badly. When I was eight, I interpreted it quite literally. It said that "the truth of all things" could be known. I was certain that if I read the BoM and prayed, I would be able to tell whether anything I heard was true or false. I realized early on that I was naïve. Even so, I realized quickly that praying to know if the BoM is true had spotty success at best. I just told myself that only a few people are sincere. I was so judgmental.

That happened to me too. I read the "truth of ALL things" part in my teens and shook my head. I knew nobody knew the truth of "all things" and also the truth that people really "knew" was just plain old materialistic observation. The verse just didn't make sense. One would almost think it was written by a 24 year old kid.

[Hagoth]

Don't forget Moroni's promise has a secret loophole that allows you to turn it on its head:

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true;

[deacon blues]

Don't forget Moroni's promise has a secret loophole that allows you to turn it on its head:

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true;

Yeah, isn't that worded awkwardly? A 24 year kid might have written it.

Thanks to A-BOM for all the wonderful insights this year. This has been my best BOM Sunday School Class ever!

[Hagoth]

Thanks to A-BOM for all the wonderful insights this year. This has been my best BOM Sunday School Class ever!