Smoot wrote: With the recent advent of easy access to the Internet, criticisms of the Church of Jesus Christ have been made widely available—though most remain retreads of the same tired, well-worn attacks that often date to the 1830s.
The other day I overheard a group of people claiming that
Kevin Trudeau is a con man, because they found it difficult to believe that coral calcium from Japan is a miracle substance that comes just short of turning people into the gods of Olympus. I asked these critics how many of them had medical degrees or advanced degrees in pharmacology. The silence was telling.
Smoot wrote: "Many of the criticisms leveled against Joseph Smith’s vision apply equally well to Paul’s vision".
Many of the criticisms leveled against the reality of Zarahemla apply equally well to Middle Earth or Narnia.
Smoot wrote:Contrary to the façade fabricated by self-assured and insulated critics, cognitive dissonance is a two-edged sword that cuts both ways.
The explanatory power of a metaphor is somewhat lost when you have to explicitly state what your metaphor means.
Smoot quoting Reed quoting Todd Christofferson quoting Joseph Smith wrote: The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “a prophet [is] a prophet only when he [is] acting as such.”
So when someone like, say, Brigham Young, gives a talk in conference in the Salt Lake Tabernacle in his capacity as president of the Church in the name of Jesus Christ about the nature of God, we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that he is speaking as a prophet.
The prophets do not claim infallibility, but some members unwittingly act as if that is the case and are then disturbed if the prophets do not measure up to that unrealistic standard.
"In our system of Church government, evil speaking and criticism of leaders by members is always negative. Whether the criticism is true or not, as Elder George F. Richards explained, it tends to impair the leaders’ influence and usefulness, thus working against the Lord and his cause." --Dallin H. Oaks,
February 1987 Ensign