ENTRY 52 JOURNAL RELIABILITY

http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/clayton-diaries

How reliable are the journals of William Clayton as a source for determining what Joseph Smith did or did not do, said or did not say?  If you’ve read the compilation by George Smith called William Clayton:  An Intimate Chronicle,  that collects all of William Clayton’s writings into one source, then you’ve seen a narrative that appears seamless and flows across the early Church history as if it is all one continuous stream of events from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City. And a stream of events that shows God introducing polygamy to earnest Saints, who although may be struggling to live the “Higher Law”, are nonetheless walking the path that God has laid out before them.  

But that compilation of entries by George Smith disguises a problem with the narrative.  In reality, it is pieced together from a dozen sources, and whatever may have been his original intention with the core journals, Clayton added and edited them and turned them into a propaganda tool for the LDS church.

The above link will take you to an essential source if you are going to delve into the William Clayton writings.  Why?  Because it will provide the original source references for each entry in the compilation of William Clayton’s writings. And that's highly valuable. 

Here's an important note found at the beginning of this collection:

"This compilation attempts to capture chronologically, all of the personal writings of William Clayton while he was a resident of Nauvoo, Illinois. It begins with the day Clayton arrived in Nauvoo, and ends with the day he left Nauvoo and crossed the Mississippi River"

Easy to overlook, but did you catch what the meaning of this editorial note is really saying?  The editor took all of the writings of William Clayton and compiled them in the order of chronology found in the subject matter and NOT in the order of which these writings were actually written.  This changes the reliability of the statements because when Clayton is writing about statements made by Joseph Smith, he is sometimes writing twenty or more years after the fact.

The March 9, 1843 entry is a good examplehis new reference a careful review first.
But here's something to note about this collection:
"This compilation attempts to capture chronologically, all of the personal writings of William Clayton while he was a resident of Nauvoo, Illinois. It begins with the day Clayton arrived in Nauvoo, and ends with the day he left Nauvoo and crossed the Mississippi River"
The specific entry you mentioned March 9, 1843 does not come from a journal, rather it comes from an affidavit. That's significant. But like I said, I want to look this one over more and again, I thank you for the link that illustrates the problem with the Clayton writings.

9 March 1843, Thursday

   Nauvoo 1

  

  

  

   Thursday 9. At prest. Josephs office. Walked out in the P.M. he told

   me it was lawful for me to send for Sarah & said he would furnish me

   money.

   Affidavit, p. 225

  

   During this period the Prophet Joseph frequently visited my house in

   my company, and became well acquainted with my wife Ruth, to whom I

   had been married five years. On day in the month of February, 1843,

   date not remembered, 22 the Prophet invited me to walk with him.

   During our walk, he said he had learned that there was a sister back

   in England, to whom I was very much attached. I replied there was, but

   nothing further than an attachment such as a brother and sister in the

   Church might rightfully entertain for each other. He then said, ``Why

   don't you send for her?'' I replied, ``In the first place, I have no

   authority to send for her, and if I had, I have not the means to pay

   expenses.'' To this he answered, ``I give you authority to send for

   her, and I will furnish you with means,'' which he did. This was the

   first time the Prophet Joseph talked with me on the subject of plural

   marriage. He informed me that the doctrine and principle was right in

   the sight of our Heavenly Father, and that it was a doctrine which

   pertained to celestial order and glory. After giving me lengthy

   instructions and information concerning the doctrine of celestial or

   plural marriage, he concluded his remarks by the words, ``It is your

   privilege to have all the wives you want.'' 23 After this

   introduction, our conversations on the subject of plural marriage were

   very frequent, and he appeared to take particular pains to inform and

   instruct me in respect to the principle. He also informed me that he

   had other wives living besides his first wife Emma, and in particular

   gave me to understand that Eliza R. Snow, Louisa Beman, Desdemona W.

   Fullmer and others were his lawful wives in the sight of Heaven.

This is the entry cited as the very day that Joseph Smith introduced polygamy to William Clayton. 

This specific entry,  March 9, 1843 does not come from a journal, rather it comes from an affidavit. The affidavit is the source reference.  See the bibliography at the beginning for a complete list of original resources used and compare it to the notes attached to each entry. The March 9, 1843 “entry” is not a journal entry, but an affidavit.  An affidavit written nearly thirty years after the fact and composed for the purpose of defending his (William Claytons) choices.  Here, he uses the name of a man now long since dead by three decades, to bolster his claims for the authority and justification of his own lifestyle.

++++++++++++++Affidavit+++++++++++++++++++++++

" A statement made by Clayton and sworn to before a notary on February
16, 1874 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Published in Andrew Jenson, The
Historical Record, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1888, pp. 224-226. Although
not a writing made in Nauvoo, it relates almost exclusively to the
Nauvoo period and contains information not found elsewhere, which was
possibly taken from Clayton's own diaries. It was printed as Appendix
C in Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, pp. 555-559."

Joseph Smith’s sons, viewing themselves as the rightful recipients of their father’s church went on a mission for the reorganized church into Utah and denounced the Utah Mormons, specifically for polygamy. 

For more information regarding RLDS missionaries in Utah during the Brigham Young era, see:

http://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/r/REORGANIZED_CHURCH_LDS.html

In response to the RLDS missionary effort, John Taylor compiled affidavits in his attempt to refute their claim that Joseph Smith was innocent of polygamy. Brigham Young was heavily invested in defending his choices and because these choices began in Nauvoo, and because he didn’t have any real authority in the form of a personal witness from God, he had to go back to the Nauvoo era to obtain a rationalization and borrow authority from a dead Joseph Smith. William Clayton, writing as scribe and historian, also shared Brigham’s motivation, and rewrote the History of the Church to reflect a narrative that supported their cause. In that process, he doctored his own journals to support his version of events. 

So what we have is an affidavit written in Utah: “A statement made by Clayton: and sworn to before a notary on February 16, 1874 in Salt Lake City, Utah.”; now inserted into a journal to appear as if it was an original entry. That deceptive use of the original written statements make them unreliable to determine what Joseph Smith really did or did not do. At best, all you can claim, is that it is what William Clayton wanted and wished Joseph had done. Otherwise had it been an actual conversation with Joseph, it would have been in the original and would have required no editing.

Here’s another example from the source material at the beginning of this collection provided by www.boap.org :

“Nauvoo 2

Diary for 27 April 1843 through 24 September 1844. (Original in

possession of the LDS Church.)

Nauvoo 3

Diary for 14 June through 22 June 1844 - Inserted under the cover of

the 1842-1845 diary. (Original in possession of the LDS Church.)”

Notice that the reference in this “journal compilation” called NAUVOO 3 is an insert that was later added to the inside cover of the journal. It covers a shared time line with the original journal. Of course it is only one week, and a critical week at that, but it illustrates the point, that Clayton would go back and amend his own writings to support and rationalize the path that the LDS Church had taken after the death of Joseph Smith. 

William Clayton was a prolific writer both in Nauvoo and Salt Lake. He wrote journals for other men in the church (as you know) and did so in the first-person voice. He was one of the primary contributors who wrote, edited, and compiled the official LDS History of the Church, under the direction of Brigham Young. This creates a problem for his records. He is heavily invested in portraying the history in a way that justifies his own actions in the past and the actions of the Utah Mormons. He has a hand in the narrative creation from the beginning in Nauvoo and across decades in Utah. He was extraordinarily capable as a writer and as you can see from the sources cited, he doctored that record to fit his own version of events.

Be sure to add the following collection of Clayton writings to your personal library from the following link.  Just the fact that it includes proper citations for each "entry" goes a long way to unraveling the mess of Nauvoo history.

 http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/clayton-diaries

ENTRY 51 BELIEF VERSUS TRUTH

                                          THE HEAVY WEIGHT BATTLE FOR FAITH: 

                                     BELIEF VERSUS TRUTH

We want to know what is true. We need to know what is really real. It is matter of survival and can make the difference between life and death.

There are certain aspects about the Universe which we cannot change as much as we would like to. Gravity is one of those aspects. I would like to be able to fly, but jumping off the Empire State Building with nothing more than a really strong belief that I can fly will only result in my death on the sidewalk below. However, knowledge about additional aspects of the universe will enable someone to construct a tool that allows us to fly up to 37000 feet off the ground and travel to New York in about three hours. Additional knowledge would allow someone else to build a similar but different tool that would be able to escape the pull of Earth’s gravity entirely and fly to some distant planet. So, consider the power of Truth versus Belief. Pixy dust and wishing on a star will get you killed, but well thought out science and sound engineering will get you safely to heights only previously dreamed about. Both methods represent an approach to testing a belief system. One is wishful thinking and the other is knowledge. Both are beliefs but which of these beliefs can be said to be true?

This isn’t a battle between science and religion. This is a discussion about Truth versus Belief. Is Faith in God something built on truth? Or is Faith in God something built on Belief?

Faith is something that needs to be built on truth. Truth is a rock to build a foundation upon. Faith built on belief is a faith built on the possibility of falsehoods and therefore it is built on a foundation of sand.

Does God care more about what you believe or does God care more about what is true?

When people talk about Faith, I hear them using the word in a context that often means Belief, not always, but often. There are plenty of scripture references that use the term Faith in a manner that means Belief. Sermons talk about the necessity of Believing in the face of opposition. High School graduation ceremonies are conducted with speeches about standing up for what you believe. Movies portray the hero and heroine overcoming trials by believing in themselves. There are philosophies that describe the power of positive thinking and bringing into reality the desires of your heart by the power of your belief. Our culture is enamored with this thing called Belief.

The idea that Belief is a virtue is a mistake and if you can give me a few minutes of your time, I’d like to explain why God does not care about your confidence in your beliefs, rather God cares more about your motivation and desire to understand Truth. Understanding the difference has a direct correlation to Faith.

First, as we try to unravel the knots of our cultural upbringing, some definitions of terms need to be clarified. One of the challenges in determining what is true is that the definitions people use are often different for different people. This is the case even if people share the same language. An agreement on definitions is going to get us a long way down the path to a common understanding. As you read this article, please keep in mind that when I use the following words, I am using them with these definitions (presented in non-alphabetical order):

TRUTH = The way things really are

BELIEF = That which we think is true, but not necessarily true

EVIDENCE = Information indicating whether a belief is valid

KNOWLEDGE = A belief proven to be true

DECEPTION = That which is not according to reality but seems to be real

LIE = A deception presented deliberately

WISDOM = Knowledge used in a practical manner for the benefit of the greater whole

UNIVERSE = All things in existence

GOD = The force or intelligence that created all things, has knowledge of all things and has power over all things

FAITH = The attitude or motivation to know God’s will and act accordingly

These are the definitions and these are the limits of the definitions. I recognize that there is a host of additions that have been attached to these words and we can argue for hours and hours about the actual meanings of these words. In a different context, those different definitions may have important nuances to increase our understanding about other topics. For today’s purposes, I am going to limit myself to these definitions and I hope that will make the distinction between belief and truth more apparent to anyone who may read this.

Another example, this time from my childhood. I used to watch more than my fair share of television. As a very young child I was impressed by a Snicker Candy Bar commercial that frequently played on TV. In the commercial, someone was enjoying eating their Snicker Bars and explaining how it gets them through the day. In the background a narrator extolled the virtues of this heavenly snack while a choir that sounded like angels sang “Snickers satisfies youuuu!” One of the sequences in the commercial showed a hand, holding peanuts. The hand closed over the peanuts and opened again revealing another Snickers bar ready for consumption.

This commercial made a strong impression on me. “What if?!!” What if I could conjure up a Snickers Bar? Determined to try, I looked for a handful of peanuts. The only source I had available at the time was a Salted Peanut Roll bar. Which was perfect because I really enjoyed eating those too. So I picked all the peanuts off the surface of the roll and ate the candy bar minus the nuts. Then armed with all the remaining peanuts and a strong belief in miracles, I hid myself in the basement and engaged in a battle of belief versus truth. I may have begun with a prayer, but I distinctly recall holding the peanuts in one hand and closing my eyes and willing them to transform into a Snickers Bar. The first attempt proved to be inconclusive when I opened my eyes and still held a handful of peanuts and no candy bar. Perhaps I didn’t have a strong enough desire or belief. Perhaps it was because I was working by a faulty premise. Maybe it was a mistake to employ the use of Salted Peanut Roll Peanuts in an attempt to create a genuine Snickers Bar. Maybe it was the wrong kind of nuts. I put all of the doubts aside and began again, giving more energy to the effort of imagining the Snickers Bar in my hand.

I will spare you a long story and just skip to the end. The peanuts did not transform into a Snickers bar that day. However, over the years I have discovered how to transform a dollar bill into a Snickers bar. If you would like to know how, send me a message in the comment section below and I’ll share with you how this is accomplished. For now, I just want to point out that choosing one methodology over another one does make a difference.

I suppose in retrospect, you really can’t blame a little kid for trying. Every week I went to Sunday School and learned about Jesus transforming water into wine, healing the blind and raising the dead. All by his spoken word. As it was explained to me, it is our belief in Jesus that brings the miracles into our lives. That is what faith is you see, “The assurance of things which are true, the evidence of which is not yet seen.” In other words, faith is belief supported by a really strong conviction. This is how most theologies use the words faith and belief. Unfortunately, this definition and application of the words has created an incredible error. Faith is really not the same thing as Belief. And Belief is really not the same thing as Truth. Errors in theology grow exponentially the more these words get confused.

Here’s why…

God created everything and therefore God set the laws by which the universe operates. So if it is a fact about the universe then it is an aspect of the universe set in motion by God. Which means if it is true about the world we live in, it is true because God made it so. This means that God not only has an invested interest in Truth, actually God is Truth itself. God is that which generates Truth. If we have any hope or desire to connect with God, we ourselves must have a complete desire for truth. We must seek out truth and never ignore it. We must not cling to falsehoods. As soon as a falsehood within us is revealed, we must quickly discard it and replace it with truth.

Belief on the other hand, is that which we think is true from our perspective. Nevertheless, a Belief is not necessarily true. A different perspective often expands our view and opens our understanding to reveal that what was previously a convincing belief is not actually what it once appeared to be. Therefore, any belief must always be held in humility. That is to say, we must have the humility to recognize that our beliefs might be in error.

And so what is Faith? Faith is having a desire to transition from a mere belief in God to having an actual and true knowledge of God. Faith is acting upon the knowledge of things which we currently know to be true.   When you act upon that which you know to be true, that is pleasing to God. God is truth after all, so aligning yourself with truth only means that you are aligning yourself with God. Faith is an internal motivation to know and do the will of God.

Faith is not belief because belief can be mistaken. You cannot please God standing up for your beliefs because such an act is an act of pride. In the “standing up for your beliefs”, you are demonstrating that you think you have perfect understanding and have no more need to be taught nor to repent. Therefore it demonstrates a lack of faith because it lacks a willingness to learn truth.

However, being quick to listen to opposing views and ability to consider and reconsider one’s own system of beliefs is a sign of humility. This demonstrates the willingness and capacity to learn new truths as these may present themselves. Embracing new truths is the heart of repentance. That’s why faith is not belief. Faith is acting upon that which we know to be God’s will. Faith is living life according to facts. In short, Faith is accepting God’s Will. If God’s will happens to include the miraculous gifts that we requested in prayer, then Halleluiah! But what if God’s will does not include that requested blessing? Be it according to thy will Oh Lord, for thy wisdom exceedeth all. Accepting the Will of God in good times and in bad is Faith.

Facts are verifiable truths describing the world and the universe. These are made known by the evidences we find in the framework which God established. Human beings observe and experience the world around them and draw conclusions in attempt to understand the universal laws of God. Facts are those things which are established by God.  Facts are a description of the universe according to how God designed it.  So too are universal laws.  These laws of God are unchangeable and these are laws which man could not break even if he tried. Universal laws are the universe as God has made it to be. Searching for facts increases a man's awareness of the world as God created it. Knowing and living in harmony with universal laws gives man an increased capacity to act with wisdom.

Once again, Gravity is the example. The law of gravity cannot be broken. Airplanes do not break the law of gravity. Airplanes make use of other laws like the laws of fluid dynamics, the laws of opposing forces, and the laws of heat energy exchange in conjunction with the law of gravity to produce an effect that appears to break the law of gravity but actually works with the law of gravity. Knowing the laws of God gives man an increased capacity to act in the universe. Ignorance of those laws only results in breaking yourself against the facts. Why risk the perpetuation of ignorance by insisting that your belief is the causal factor of God’s pleasure when it is abundantly evident in the natural world around you that God is a factual God, a God of truth and the universal laws of nature don’t care if you believe or not? Your capacity to survive life and your capacity to please God are only conditional on your willingness to accept truth. The laws of the universe honor the individual who lives by those laws by allowing the individual to continue on in life.

Faith is not and cannot be a measurement of Belief. As we have discussed, your belief means nothing ultimately if it is not a belief in that which is true. Truth means everything. So faith is only a measurement of your willingness to accept truth as it is presented to you.

Defining Faith as believing in something without evidence is one of the most deceived positions you can accept. Believing without evidence is the essence of saying you have no valid information to back up your postulation. It is declaring that you have no reasonable way to demonstrate the accuracy of your assertions. It is the open declaration that you are willing to accept deception at all costs in order to maintain that which you believe.  Remember that it is written "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).  This does not exclude all evidence, but merely the evidence of sight.  An "assurance" implies that evidence of some type has indeed been given, even if it is the evidence of a still small voice or the evidence of a heart filled with light.  These may provide the beginning of the search for sure knowledge and though it may be small in degree compared to a visible confirmation, it is still an evidence.  Nevertheless, acting on that assurance is still different than acting on a belief.

This is difficult to recognize in one’s own self, but abundantly easy to see in others. For example, imagine you have a friend who is participating in a religion you are absolutely certain is a false cult that will ultimately lead to their ruin. You want to save this friend. How do you approach them and how would you expect them to respond? You would approach them by respectfully and kindly laying out the facts, both the good and bad of the situation. And they would respond by carefully considering everything that you told them. They would study it out. They would pray about it. They would do some follow up investigation and they would be doing this while recognizing all along that the things they are studying and considering are in complete and total opposition to the teachings of the cult. When they perceived the reality of what you had warned them about, they would begin to make changes. They would repent. It might take some time, but they would make every effort to weed out the falsehoods and embrace the good truths that you shared with them.

Now imagine you are that friend in the cult? If you happened to be trapped in such a situation, how would you ever get yourself out of it if you were so confident in your beliefs that it wouldn’t allow you to even question the system of beliefs itself? You couldn’t escape the faulty religion because doubting the belief system is portrayed as the sin itself! If you can’t give yourself the freedom to reconsider what you think you know then you can never allow a message of repentance to take hold within your heart. That is why Belief is NOT the basis of Faith!
  
Are you going to let others create a list of rules for you to live by, what you can eat, what you can read, who you can associate with all based on a myth? The thought is unthinkable, which means you should have a compelling love for truth and you should have a high motivation for increasing your capacity to discern what is real. You should be able to explain why you believe what you believe and give plausible reasons for it. And you should be able to leave the door of belief unlocked and allow new evidence in at any time to allow yourself the freedom to change whenever new information is received.

Keep in mind that none of this discounts the marvelous gifts of God. None of this excludes the spiritual insights or promptings that religious people seek for and attempt to follow. There are experiences which many people have had which they can only attribute to a power outside the natural world. When these accounts are related to us in a first hand, eye witness setting, we have an opportunity to consider one of the most compelling evidences of an all knowing, all powerful intelligence that just might have a desire and motivation to interact with human beings.

The most compelling form of evidence that may validate the idea that the force that created all things, has knowledge of all things and has power over all things has taken on the express form of a being that we can relate to on a human level is the eye witness accounts. There are miraculous experiences that people of all religions report about. A google search using the words, “God healed me” will provide dozens of video testimony accounts of people who prayed to God and received sudden relief from physical pain. Notice their religious affiliations are multiple and various. They are Catholic, they are Protestant, they are Baptist, they are Seventh Day Adventist, they are Jehovah’s Witness, they are Mormon, they are Jewish, they are Islamic, they are Hindu, and they are Buddhist, and so on. God answered their prayers. They have submitted their witness statements to the world. So we have an abundance of evidence in the form of witness statements that God answers prayers irrespective of religious affiliation.

Well that challenges some claims doesn’t it? There are those who claim to be the only authority of God on earth and yet here is God going about the world impudently healing people without getting permission from those men who sit in their red seats of authority. Maybe God answers prayers not because of their religions but despite their religions.

And try google searching “I saw God” and you will find additional witness statements of people who have had some kind of experience with the divine. Granted some are not so credible. Nevertheless, some are reasonable enough accounts for us to stop and consider just how accessible is that force which governs all things? Once again, is that universal force or intelligence accessible by our beliefs? Or is it accessible by our willingness to accept truth?

Well that is the conclusion of this essay. God is accessible by our willingness to accept truth.
Please note, I did not spend any amount of time in discussing how to recognize truth nor how to deal with the challenge of confronting contradictory evidences and so on.  Though I had intended to do exactly that, I am discovering the complexity of the topic will take more effort than a short essay such as this.  I hope to be able to provide a presentation on how to determine what is true at a later date.  For now, this essay is laying the foundation for such a discussion.  Also, I avoided selecting examples that are at the forefront of our religious debates. We can pick those subjects up at a different time. But I did not want the main point to get sidetracked on hot button issues. I am well aware of the many scriptures that directly link faith and belief.  You may quote them anew and I will reconsider my position anew if it appears to be warranted.  At this time, in my mind, such scriptures do not contradict what I have laid out here.  I find the case for a God of Truth much more compelling than the case for a God of Belief. In fact, as I read many of those scripture references, I see a context that is much more supportive for such a God. Which is exactly why I have written this essay. Nevertheless, if you have a more compelling case to make and you can change my mind, I would consider myself indebted to you for increasing my understanding.

For now, my only hope is that if you were able to make it to the end of this essay, that the conclusions you will walk away with are the following:

God is a God of truth.

We please God by our acceptance of truth.

Belief is not necessarily truth.

Faith is not belief.

Faith is our desire to do the will of God.

Faith is exercised by actually doing what we know we should be doing right now.

The result is that we ought to be slow to declare that we KNOW anything and we ought to be willing to listen openly to differing viewpoints, ever ready to accept new understanding from any source that may teach us a little something more about truth.

ENTRY 50 ARE WE BLESSED OR CURSED?

Did God accept the Nauvoo temple as an acceptable fulfillment of his commandments by our Fathers?  In Doctrine and Covenants 124, there is a promise from God if they fulfilled the commandment on God's terms.  There is also a warning of the conditions to follow if they did not fulfill His commandments.  Which case occurred?  Which inheritance did we receive from our fathers?

"If the congregation will give me their attention, I will detain them but a short time. Our history is too well known to render it necessary for me to enter into particulars on the subject this morning. Suffice it to say, to this congregation, that we shall attempt to build a temple to the name of our God. This has been attempted several times, but we have never yet had the privilege of completing and enjoying one. Perhaps we may in this place, but if, in the providence of God, we should not, it is all the same."
(Brigham Young, J of D 1:277
Feb. 14, 1853.)

ENTRY 49 WAKING UP

Remember in the movie The Matrix when Thomas Anderson (Neo) is going about his daily life and begins to discover glitches in the world around him.  Slowly he begins to recognize something isn’t right and the closer he looks into it, the more he finds that the world he believed was “real” was in fact nothing more than a program.  At one point, he is offered the Red Pill which if he takes, he will wake up from the programming and see the world for what it is.  Or he could go back to sleep in the dream world which is depicted as our own modern life if he will take the blue pill.  So he is given an invitation and of course what did he do?  What you do?  What would I do?  We’d do what Neo did and take the Red Pill!  Because we want to have a correct understanding of the world around us. 

 

Wouldn’t everyone?  Well shockingly and to my dismay, I am finding that most people do not want to increase their understanding of the world around them.  They want to keep the delusion going.  They want to stay warm and comfortable in their dream land.  

 

How am I coming to the conclusion that most do not want to wake up?  Because they are unwilling to engage in meaningful discussions with a genuine attempt to understand viewpoints that are presented which are contradictory to their own.  Let’s say someone believes that “X is True”; how would that someone act if they actually had an internal motivation to learn about True things? They would welcome and invite contradictory viewpoints.  They would say to everyone, “I am really confident that X is True.  Oh you think I am wrong, okay let’s talk about it.  Let’s use Reasoning.  Let’s examine the Evidence. Let’s put it to the Test. I am willing to discuss this as long as you would like because I am so sure in this concept that I know you will find it as compelling as I do.  However!  If you bring to me more compelling Reasoning and stronger Evidence.  And my “X” fails the test, then I will adopt your “Y”.  And I will thank you for it because you have increased my understanding and expounded my view.  I would be indebted to you for that.”  That’s how people who are sincerely interested in learning about Truth approach it.  But that isn’t how most people approach things.  Instead, they coddle their world view and protect it.  They act defensively.  They get angry.  If you can even get them to discuss it with you at all, they use Logical Fallacies to distract others away from the real issue.  Instead of examining X, they attack the person who wanted to test X  (Ad Hominin attack).  Or they misrepresent X to such an extreme position that of course it appears false (Straw Man argument). Or just as the results are beginning to demonstrate that X is indeed false, they change the definition of X to represent something else (Begging the Question or Moving the Target).  In my limited circle of family, friends and associates, the one fallacy I observe most commonly is the “Appeal to Authority”.  X is something that someone official and bonafide said therefore it must be true. When I am dealing with someone who uses defensiveness, personal attacks, and strange emotional overreactions, that’s when I suspect I am talking with someone who cares nothing for Truth but is only interested in maintaining their own world view.   Yet when people are willing to engage in thoughtful, meaningful discussions that’s when I suspect I am interacting with someone who at the heart is interested in finding Truth. 

 

Let that Truth come at whatever consequence, just let it be the Truth.

 

And so I have begun to notice glitches in my world view.  The walls are beginning to develop cracks and I am beginning to see beyond the wall to a much wider view.  And for me that world that encased me was Mormonism.  I admit that I failed to live Mormonism as a Mormon should.  I made for a miserable Latter-day Saint, but I really BELIEVED it, all of it.  And sincerely I believed it as it was presented to me.  But some of those pesky glitches made me take a second look.  So there is the ammo for those who want to engage in the ad hominine fallacy.  They will tell me that "I didn't line up with commandments.  I didn't try hard enough.  I didn't do it right."  Sincerely I tried.  In fact I am still trying to live Mormonism the way I really believe it is meant to be lived.  Nevertheless, wanting to know the truth, the way things “really” are, I didn’t turn away from history or contradictory viewpoints, or counter arguments.   And one night, while studying another Mormon Believer’s essay on scriptures, I came across a concept I had never encountered before.  What if the Book of Mormon was written for the Latter Day church?  In other words, when the book of Mormon is talking about those of the Latter Days polluting the church of God with fine linen, gold and harlots…it was NOT referring to some other church…it was really pointing at the church that was given the book itself.  In other words, it was talking about us!  The more I thought about this, the more I searched the Book of Mormon, the more I realized, “Hey yeah!  This is referring to the church that actually publishes the Book itself.”

 

   35 Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing.

 36 And I know that ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions, and all manner of iniquities; and your churches, yea, even every one, have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts.

 37 For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.

 38 O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God? Why are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies—because of the praise of the world?

 39 Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not?

 40 Yea, why do ye build up your secret abominations to get gain, and cause that widows should mourn before the Lord, and also orphans to mourn before the Lord, and also the blood of their fathers and their husbands to cry unto the Lord from the ground, for vengeance upon your heads?

 41 Behold, the sword of vengeance hangeth over you; and the time soon cometh that he avengeth the blood of the saints upon you, for he will not suffer their cries any longer.

It’s our church he is talking to.  It’s us.  The Book of Mormon is very succinct on that point.  It isn't referring to "those others" such as the Catholics or Protestants or the Agnostic or the Athiest.  It is speaking directly to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Incorporated. And it is speaking to me, I have been a part of it all. 

Who could be more prideful than those who believe they are “THE ONE TRUE CHURCH”.  Of all the billions of people, through all the generations of time.  This people who amount to less than .0001% of all the people of the world, is the only ONE TRUE PEOPLE who have AUTHORITY from GOD?  And they control all who can get into heaven by their ordinances.  HUBRIS! PRIDE! VANITY!  OKAY, OKAY, let’s say it IS that one and only true church….what would God want us to do with it?  Build an $8 billion dollar shopping mall at the doorstep of the temple?  Become the largest land developer in the state of Florida?  Ignore the poor and needy among us as we lift men up to the status of kings and place them on red velvet thrones and fully support them financially to fund their business prospects as the CEO’s and Board of Trustees of for-profit businesses?  How about mind controlling children by getting them to recite the same incantation every month?  Why are we programming them to be little robots: “I know this church is true.  I know that Thomas S.  Monson is a prophet of God.  I love my family.  Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”   What does a little child “KNOW” about anything?  How about teaching them to be inquisitive and humble and reasonable and thoughtful which children are naturally anyway.  Instead of flattering them that they are God’s chosen people and  coercing them through mind numbing ryhthms of songs like "Follow the Prophet!  Follow the Prophet!  He knows the way!"  Or how prideful can a group of people be who say those others aren’t worthy because they were born black and don’t deserve the priesthood.   What’s with the idea that an Alpha Dog prophet can take as many wives as he wants and that includes the wives of other men?  Why are the temple rituals including the taking of oaths before “God, Angels and These Witnesses” when the scriptures forbid swearing by the throne of God?  Why are these oaths being administered with penalties of death when the scriptures say “Thou shalt not swear by thy head.”?  That’s what God would want with his one and only True Church?  That’s the Truth?  “Oh but we fixed that now.  That’s why we have living prophets that can never lead us astray” Really?  The living prophet of yesteryear didn’t lead our grandparent’s astray?  Yet the prophet of today is contradicting that one?  That’s a foundation of Truth?  Right in the very scriptures that Mormons declare is from God, we find the warnings repeatedly that Men, including those titled prophet did, can and do lead people astray.  The scriptures themselves warn of these things.  All of these things are explicitly warned about in the very books the people say they believe are true.  Yet they do not see it.

 

I began to wake up.  Once I saw it, I could never un-see it.  In a way, it doesn’t even matter if Joseph translated gold plates or completely made up the Book of Mormon.  Reading the Book of Mormon and comparing the LDS Church to its own Book completely exposes the falsehoods within the religious structure itself.  If the Book of Mormon is a Fiction then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is False and the leaders of the church have said just that themselves.  If the Book of Mormon is True then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is REALLY FALSE because it completely contradicts its own scriptures.  And that my friend, is the kind of red pill logic that shatters forty years of mind control and manipulation of a member who really, truly bought into it all.  That is how Neo wakes up.

 

But having woken up, now what is the real world?  What is true?  What is really real?  That’s where you currently find me.  I’m teachable.  I’m willing to learn.  And I have started with digging down to the bare bone definitions of words.  Language.  I am starting to realize that people are using words in a way that is completely different than the common definition of the word.  They do this all the time.  They hijack the word and turn its meaning into something that is more suitable to their purpose.  I won’t give a lot of examples here because most of my blog is my attempt to show how the original words within the Mormon religion are actually defined.  Not how most people use them today, but how the Mormon scriptures are using them.  The reason for this is because it is how I woke up.  Looking at how the word was used in comparison to how it was written.  These are different.  And the differences matter. 

 

To give you an idea of how far I am willing to go to find “Truth” (please use whatever definition suits you), I will tell you what I have studied this year in addition to LDS Church History.  I read the Koran and two other books about Islam from “insiders”, one apologetics for Islam and the other completely opposed to it after having been raised in it.  I have been studying the origins of the Bible.  I have been studying Evolution.  I have been studying Atheist reasoning.  I have also been considering the Reincarnation viewpoint as presented by Edgar Cayce.    A lot of what I do is find some documentary on Youtube about one of these topics and listen to it while I drive to or from work or when I am stuck in some hotel somewhere with a little time alone to eat a microwave dinner.  To truly study anything would require immersion in the culture and no one has time for that.  But the point is that nothing is off the table.  It’s open season and everything is worthy of consideration.  Naturally, I have some theories about each of these and recognize that these are theories only, nothing conclusive.  I enjoy having my world view challenged.  And I am now of the opinion that only those who won’t allow their world view to be challenged are those who would rather stay asleep.

And yes, my dear fellow Mormons, I have prayed about.  It has been constant prayer and continues to be so.

So we come to the question of defining Truth.  As you said, my definition is bordering on circular reasoning.  I recognized it as I wrote it. It is actually the definition straight out of Doctrine and Covenants.  I like it because it is simple and the intent of the definition is not circular in reasoning.  Though our approach to it might be. 

 

“Truth is the way things really are, the way things really were and the way things really will be.”

 

The circular reasoning trap could be sprung upon us if we try to define really.  What is “really” anyway?   If I turn to the dictionary and find the word “Real” will it say “Truth”?  And if I look at "Truth" will it say to turn to the entry on "Real"?

 

Real “actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed”

 

Truth “in accordance with fact or reality”

 

Well, there are the two definitions.  And somewhat they do in fact point to each other. In fact, they both point to the word "FACT".  Now we're going to have to define "FACT"  and we are still right back at the heart of the argument.  What is FACT?  How do we know if it is actually a "FACT"?  What is the test to measure the validity of something called "FACT"? 

The goal I hope is that we determine an agreeable definition, so that we are all speaking the same language.  Once we get beyond that, we still haven’t solved the deeper problem, however are then able to place each other on an equal playing field. 

So putting aside the definition game for a moment, let's just start with the assumption that whatever word you want to define TRUTH, FACT, REAL, NOT IMAGINED, NOT SUPPOSED, whatever that might be, lets start with the assumption that you and I are BOTH interested in discovering it.  My belief in your sincerity allows me to consider your viewpoint.  Your belief in my sincerity allows you to consider my viewpoint.  We don't shake our heads at the other and say, "How deluded!  How short sided!  How Unworthy!"  And by "You" in this context, I really do believe that has been your approach.  If you have read this far without turning your head in disgust, there is a level of willingness to forgo the "I'm right-Your wrong"  in favor of the "What piece did you bring to the puzzle table?" 

So, now I'm probably preaching to the choir.  Let's move on...

What ideas can we include in the category of Real or Truth?  And I think that is what you are saying…it isn’t so simple and it can’t be taken for granted that just because I think it is fact today doesn’t mean that new evidence won’t change my paradigm again tomorrow.    How certain can we be in our defined Truths?  We can’t be certain without risking the complete shut down of our ability to learn.  Once we are sure in our own “Knowledge”, we begin to use those fallacies that we recognize in others.  We begin to ignore new knowledge in favor of the warm cocoon of our dream land.       

 

Well, in defining the word, there needed to be some basic answer.  Some word that hasn’t been hijacked to mean something else.  Is there such a word?  Maybe not.  As soon as we say that Truth is that which is fact or reality and then we say that fact/reality is that which is not imagined or supposed…now we have to solve the question of what is fact?  What is not imagined or supposed?  It’s ALL IMAGINED and it is ALL SUPPOSED on some level!  And just as soon as we decide that this thing is a FACT we find out that in another circumstance it is not a FACT.  So then context is a consideration too…and I know that is another aspect you just pointed out. 

 

So what is the basis of comparison?

 

Well, the ultimate basis of comparison would be knowledge of all things.  What or who could know all things?  Only that which created all things and has power over all things. ...Drat!  Now we are talking about God.  But that definition of God is not the religious definition.  That definition could be a scientific or philosophical definition…no really, it could.  Is it electrical energy, gravity, anti-matter, quark string theory (what did you call it?)  Maybe it is.  There is SOMETHING that put the universe together and granted, it looks like whatever that force or intelligence is, it did it by Evolution on this planet.  Evolution is far more believable then the fairytale version of ADAM and EVE.  Evolution...That’s still God by the bare bones definition of God…a force or intelligence that created all things and has power over all things.  What’s that force?  What is it?  Science wisely avoids calling it God because the word God has been hijacked by hundreds of years of abusive religions seeking to gain control over people.  Religion turns the word God into a Holy Book or a Holy Man or Holy Ordinance…religion sells you A God, but they can never give you THE GOD.  THE GOD … the force that created all things and has power over all things….well that’s going to do what it has always done…and if it (whatever it is) has any interaction at all, its going to be on it’s own terms.  Maybe those terms are not warm and loving and fatherly.  Maybe they are simply “factual” and do not interact with us on a human level that we can relate to.  I say maybe to acknowledge that scientific viewpoints have a lot of validity to me and yet I don’t see science as contradictory to someone maintain a worldview of God at all.  I do have experiences that lead me to believe that there is something that is greater than human beings that is willing to interact with us on our level coming from a higher level, that is something we could refer to as "God" or we could refer to it as "The FORCE" or "Einstein's Theory of Everything" or "The Answer was 42, wait, what was the question again?"  Fine, call it what you want, but does it have anything to do with me?  Does it matter to me? I personally find that it does, despite religions' failures.  And I would hope to say more about why, but that would go beyond the bare bones definition I am trying to establish for the moment here.  Especially as you pointed out previously, how would I even know that what I was experiencing was the real God…if that God appeared as a father figure….well, who is his father….and his father…and his father…because if that God had to answer to another God then that is no God at all, is it?…because by definition, that God isn’t the ultimate source of knowledge and power of all things.  But something is, whatever it is.  Something made all things, because all things are here.  Well if it …whatever it is…is it willing to interact with us, what would be the cause or reason for the interaction?  What form would it take?  How would I validate the experience?  What would I measure it against?     

How many layers of waking up like Neo did would you have to go through to get to the ultimate source of Truth?  How many apparent Gods would you have to shatter to find the one that is the real McCoy?

Hell, I don’t know!