NOM

http://www.ldsliving.com/President-Eyri ... eingmormon

Brace yourselves. President Eyring shared an "unforgettable miracle" he experienced while taking the Sacrament. Did they provide the Sacrament to 5,000 people with five loaves (and two fishes)? Did he see the parting of the Red Sea? Did he use his apostolic powers to heal the lame, blind, deaf, sick and afflicted? Did they see angels? Did he get through a talk without blubbering?

Nope. Nothing so miraculous of any of that:

One memory that the Spirit often brings to my mind is of an evening sacrament meeting held in a metal shed in Innsbruck, Austria, many years ago. It was under a railroad track. There were only about a dozen people present, sitting on wooden chairs. Most of them were women, some younger and some older. I saw tears of gratitude as the sacrament was passed among that small congregation. I felt the love of the Savior for those Saints, and so did they.

But the miracle I remember most clearly was the light that seemed to fill that metal shed and with it a feeling of peace. It was nighttime, and there were no windows, and yet the room was lit as if by noonday sunshine. The light of the Holy Spirit was there that evening. And the windows that let in the light were the humble hearts of those Saints, who had come before the Lord seeking forgiveness of their sins and committing to always remember Him.

Sorry, gotta say, President Eyring, compared to the stuff your prophet, seer, and revelator colleagues did in the scriptures, your miracle is pretty lame.

We'll call it "the miracle of the metaphorical light in the shed."

This goes well with Holland's miracle of the changing missionary age and Bednar's miracle of not being healed. Miracles are all around us. Just this morning I witnessed the miracle of the enhanced scattering of blue light from molecules in the air. There is also the miracle of someone boxing cereal for my consumption and the miracle of the emission spectrum of mercury in the compact fluorescent bulb. I feel blessed.

Disprove it.

It's that simple, if it can be disproved (return from the dead, healing, sight/hearing restored) it's not going to be mentioned as "a miracle".

How you feel isn't a miracle. How you perceive isn't a miracle. Br. Eyring's experience isn't a miracle.

This is an interesting example of how the apostles will use carefully selected words to imply that one thing while meaning another. He's implying that an actual light, like you'd get from the sun or a flashlight, filled the shed. What he's actually saying is that it "seemed" that way because of the good feelings.

When people ask why Joseph or others would lie about miracles, then we can point to examples like this. Maybe they aren't lying, they're embellishing or heavily implying that something was tangibly real when it was actually a vision or an impression.

The funny thing is that this would be astonishing if spiritual people meeting together actually caused visible light to appear. A group of Christian believers cause measurable and visible electromagnetic radiation by having a spiritual experience in a specific way. If this could be reliably repeated in a controlled environment then we would have a substantial portion of the physics community clamoring to join the LDS church, or at least attend on a regular basis. A Nobel Prize in Physics is awaiting someone.

Yet any scientist or skeptic who approached believers asking to attend for this purpose would be laughed out of the room by the believers. They didn't really cause photons to appear in the room. They probably had a lamp or some candles. The fellowship of believers joining together made the room seem lighter, but only in the mind's eye of the people present. This could have happened with any group of worshippers meeting together with joy and spiritual purpose. This could happen with a group of friends sitting around playing poker after dinner and drinking Kilt Lifters (more research needed in this area).

The miracle is humans meeting together in a joyful common cause and anyone can experience this. I don't begrudge President Eyring's experience and the Austrian saints probably appreciated his attendance. But I'm not sure this would persist if any group of longtime priesthood holders had to regularly meet in a drafty shed under a railroad track.

Corsair wrote: ↑Fri Jun 02, 2017 12:45 pm The miracle is humans meeting together in a joyful common cause and anyone can experience this. I don't begrudge President Eyring's experience and the Austrian saints probably appreciated his attendance. But I'm not sure this would persist if any group of longtime priesthood holders had to regularly meet in a drafty shed under a railroad track.

Totally. The light Pres. Eyring was experiencing was the light of hero-worship he himself brought into the room. The windows that let the light in are the half-truths that he has perpetuated that allow that hero-worship. Guaranteed that light was not there the next week.

But let's say we give Eyring the benefit of the doubt.

The Biblical scriptures say that "whenever two or three are gathered in my name, there will I be among them." Is it possible that the Spirit was there? Does that mean the church is true? Not so fast Henry......
Could God possibly be so magnanimous that he would actually bless people who sincerely seek after Him even though they're in a phony church?
The LDS church says He blesses people in other churches all the time. But that's because He's so merciful.
But in the Mormon case the implication is ALWAYS that this happened because the Mormon church is true. It can NEVER be because God is being merciful to them as well, just like all those other phony church's....

Gotta remember all the G.A. s think they are the only ones who witness miracles or at least when they tell it it is the only ones that count. I remember Bednar saying " Sister anything I say is scripture " . Just goes to show the arrogance !!!!!

Swimming a bit against the tide here, but I would be happy for more accounts like these in GC. It's a memory, and who knows what was happening. But there's no implication that he made it happen. And the focus is on the one place in our meeting into which no one can intrude. No talking, no reading, no singing - just silence.

I tend to think that we just need to grow up as a church, or cut ourselves down to size - whichever it really is - and realize that that's what it's all about, not asserting that God wants to save us, heal us, find our stuff, etc., more than non-members.

It's a better story than the one he told about the guy who got all dressed up for work because he knew Elder Eyring was coming to give him a blessing. He got the blessing, he didn't go to work that day or any other day, he died a short time later. Yet somehow Elder Eyring feels like he can call it a miracle in his story. And people admiringly go along for the ride.

I don't get it.

Hagoth wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2017 9:11 am It's a better story than the one he told about the guy who got all dressed up for work because he knew Elder Eyring was coming to give him a blessing. He got the blessing, he didn't go to work that day or any other day, he died a short time later. Yet somehow Elder Eyring feels like he can call it a miracle in his story. And people admiringly go along for the ride.

I don't get it.

Wasn't that the talk where he joked about how the guy thought he could really heal him? Ha, yeah funny. I tried to find that General Conference talk, but after scanning several of President Eyring's talks I couldn't take it anymore and gave up. But I remember a talk where he kind of laughed because a friend expected him to heal him with a blessing. Anyone else remember that?

I think he is just so desperate to validate himself to a struggling church that he is "remembering" things in a way that make them seem miraculous. But it doesn't really matter. TBMs will believe it is a miracle if a GA says it is. It's kind of the church's new game: words don't mean words.

So the dictionary definition:

mir·a·cle.
[ˈmirək(ə)l]
NOUN
a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.

LDS definition: miracle- a mundane, modified memory of a GA.

Palerider wrote: ↑Fri Jun 02, 2017 10:21 pm But in the Mormon case the implication is ALWAYS that this happened because the Mormon church is true. It can NEVER be because God is being merciful to them as well, just like all those other phony church's....

Great insight! The one true church has to spend a lot of energy proving itself true.

Not Buying It wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2017 12:05 pm

Hagoth wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2017 9:11 am It's a better story than the one he told about the guy who got all dressed up for work because he knew Elder Eyring was coming to give him a blessing. He got the blessing, he didn't go to work that day or any other day, he died a short time later. Yet somehow Elder Eyring feels like he can call it a miracle in his story. And people admiringly go along for the ride.

I don't get it.

Wasn't that the talk where he joked about how the guy thought he could really heal him? Ha, yeah funny. I tried to find that General Conference talk, but after scanning several of President Eyring's talks I couldn't take it anymore and gave up. But I remember a talk where he kind of laughed because a friend expected him to heal him with a blessing. Anyone else remember that?

Yes, I remember Radio Free Mormon it referencing too. Not only did Erying laugh, but the audience laughed too. I think it was in the conference autopsy report on RFM. But I don't remember when the actual talk was.

Not Buying It wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2017 12:05 pm

Hagoth wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2017 9:11 am It's a better story than the one he told about the guy who got all dressed up for work because he knew Elder Eyring was coming to give him a blessing. He got the blessing, he didn't go to work that day or any other day, he died a short time later. Yet somehow Elder Eyring feels like he can call it a miracle in his story. And people admiringly go along for the ride.

I don't get it.

Wasn't that the talk where he joked about how the guy thought he could really heal him? Ha, yeah funny. I tried to find that General Conference talk, but after scanning several of President Eyring's talks I couldn't take it anymore and gave up. But I remember a talk where he kind of laughed because a friend expected him to heal him with a blessing. Anyone else remember that?

The talk was "A Witness" from October 2011 conference. Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3yRp2C7BN8&t=11m18s

nehor90210 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2017 5:08 pm
The talk was "A Witness" from October 2011 conference. Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3yRp2C7BN8&t=11m18s

That's the one - thanks! It always struck me as reprehensible that a man who claims the title of "apostle", the same title as those who healed the sick and afflicted with God's power in the New Testament, made a joke like "ha ha, he acted like he thought I could actually heal him! Isn't that funny?"

I saw that same miracle in the bedroom of a man who had given sufficient faithful service to think that he had done enough to rest.

I knew that he had undergone lengthy and painful treatment for a disease and had been told by the doctors that it was terminal. They offered neither treatment nor hope.

His wife took me to his bedroom in their home. There he was, lying on his back on the top of the carefully made-up bed. He wore a freshly pressed white shirt, a tie, and new shoes.

He saw the look of surprise in my eyes, laughed quietly, and explained, “After you give me a blessing, I want to be ready to respond to the call to take up my bed and go to work.” As it turned out, he was ready for the interview he would soon have with the Master, for whom he had worked so faithfully.

If Eyring considers this a miracle can you imagine the grandstanding he would have been doing if the man had actually recovered, even if it was from his medical treatments, and even if it was for a few months?

Palerider wrote: ↑Fri Jun 02, 2017 10:21 pmBut in the Mormon case the implication is ALWAYS that this happened because the Mormon church is true. It can NEVER be because God is being merciful to them as well, just like all those other phony church's....

I love this. Every podium in every chapel, and especially the one in the Conference Center, should have this stenciled on them: It Doesn't Prove There Were Really Gold Plates.It Doesn't Prove Thomas S. Monson Talks To God.

Not Buying It wrote: ↑Fri Jun 02, 2017 5:17 am http://www.ldsliving.com/President-Eyri ... eingmormon

But the miracle I remember most clearly was the light that seemed to fill that metal shed and with it a feeling of peace. It was nighttime, and there were no windows, and yet the room was lit as if by noonday sunshine.

I'm confused. Why were they meeting at nighttime in a dark metal shed that had no lights in it? It doesn't make sense to me to meet in a place that is pitch-black.
Or is it that the electric lights filled the shed with light and he got a feeling of peace, so decided a miracle had happened?


edited to fix quote formatting

Hagoth wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2017 9:11 am It's a better story than the one he told about the guy who got all dressed up for work because he knew Elder Eyring was coming to give him a blessing. He got the blessing, he didn't go to work that day or any other day, he died a short time later. Yet somehow Elder Eyring feels like he can call it a miracle in his story. And people admiringly go along for the ride.

I don't get it.

Huh?


It's a miracle that he couldn't heal the man? It's a miracle that the man had the faith to get dressed for work, but wasn't healed? It's a miracle that he can spin such things as miracles?