LDS Apologist Walking Away from Universal Flood

[_SteelHead]

The jury is not out. Credentials? Thinking member of the human race + I can do math. See the thread where I calculated the volume of water needed to flood the earth to the level of Mt. Everest. There is 0 evidence for a global flood as per the biblical narrative. I'll tell you another one. There is 0 evidence for the exodus from Egypt. Myths are nice as literature, scary when people decide to base their world view on them.

[_Craig Paxton]

The apologist will say nay,

Only apologists with an agenda that diverges from the Church's agenda will say that. As every TBM, including myself, knows that the official doctrine of the LDS CHurch is a global Flood.

Gobsmacked....BC and I agree on something

[Guest]

Mg, the globally immersing flood never happened.

You may be right. You may be wrong. The jury may still be out.

What are your credentials to make such an exclusive and non-negotiable statement?

Regards,
MG

mentalgymnast, do you need to see credentials from people who assert that it is not negotiable that the earth revolves around the sun? Might the jury still be out on the earth being the center of the solar system?

[_Bazooka]

Mg, the globally immersing flood never happened.

You may be right. You may be wrong. The jury may still be out.

What are your credentials to make such an exclusive and non-negotiable statement?

Regards,
MG

You believe the Church is true on the basis of much less evidence.
Now all of a sudden you need credentials?

[_bcspace]

bcspace believes in evolution and the global flood?!? I think your TBM credentials are a bit rusty there sir.

Evolution poses no problem for a TBM. However, I don't accept the global Flood doctrine and go with a local Flood instead. I figure that makes me 5% apostate at most, still well within the range of TBM.

[Guest]

Maklelan, I believe you hold an opinion that much (some? all?) of the stories within the Bible and Book of Mormon are simply folk tales or amalgamations of various cultural traditional legends and myths. I tend to agree with you. I guess that there are many General Authorities, perhaps even Apostles, who would privately agree with you. But that is not what is up for discussion here. We are debating what the Church publicly holds as doctrine.

The story of a literal, global flood is:
- scripture
- in the canon
- taught consistently across all the teaching programmes of the Church and has been for generations.
- advocated by all the General Authorities of the Church whenever and wherever they have spoken on the subject, including General Conference.

I don't see how, regardless of what 'we' think about the story of a literal global flood, it can be viewed as anything other than official Church doctrine. What set of criteria would something the Church teaches and espouses need to meet for you to consider it official doctrine?

[_moksha]

The apologist will say nay,

Only apologists with an agenda that diverges from the Church's agenda will say that. As every TBM, including myself, knows that the official doctrine of the LDS CHurch is a global Flood.

Why should the salvagably true be inextricably linked to the demonstratively false?

[_Spektical]

MG, as far as credentials go, all you need is an elementary school education to figure out the global flood story is a myth. Stop kidding yourself that there is still some active controversy about whether it actually happened.

As for maklelan, I'm guessing it's a hot Mormon wife and a stable Mormon job that prevent him from admitting the church is nothing more than a man-made organization. He's clearly not a dummy, so there's got to be a considerable amount of motivated reasoning at play to counteract the amount of cognitive dissonance he must be feeling. Not an enviable position.

[_Sethbag]

MG, as far as credentials go, all you need is an elementary school education to figure out the global flood story is a myth. Stop kidding yourself that there is still some active controversy about whether it actually happened.

As for maklelan, I'm guessing it's a hot Mormon wife and a stable Mormon job that prevent him from admitting the church is nothing more than a man-made organization. He's clearly not a dummy, so there's got to be a considerable amount of motivated reasoning at play to counteract the amount of cognitive dissonance he must be feeling. Not an enviable position.

Mak is indeed a smart guy. That's not helping him here. Smart guys can be good at problem solving. He's currently mired his thinking in wordplay that helps him reduce the cognitive dissonance, but that wordplay is all a smokescreen.

Doctrine, by the simple English-language definition, is what the church teaches; if the church teaches it, it's doctrine. That's what the word "doctrine" means to English-language speakers.

That there is somehow this nebulous concept of "official doctrine" that is distinguished from "doctrine taught by church leaders whose office and purview includes the teaching and expounding of church doctrine" is a wordplay attempt at misdirection by apologists who have recognized that this body of "official doctrine" cannot stand up to scrutiny. It is nothing more than a smokescreen, a linguistic legerdemain.

Are articles printed in the Ensign, or talks delivered in General Conference, by apostles, members of the First Presidency, etc. done as part of the execution of these guys' duties? Are the manuals that these church officials produce, approve, publish, and use in instructing and teaching the church members in matters of doctrine produced as part of the execution of these men's duties? If so, they are official doctrine, plain and simple. This is not a trick question, people.

[_Jaybear]

by the way, the global flood is not just one of many things that is taught by the LDS Church, its a core teaching. Not only is intertwined with the atonement, but who ever wrote the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham, presented a historical narrative built upon the global flood having literally occurred.

And you think I'm not aware of this?

Since you don't accept that the global flood is LDS doctrine, I presumed that you must not have given any thought of the broader implication of the position you have staked out.

My mistake. I obviously underestimated the strength of your shelf.