Radio Free Mormon: Elder Ballard Blows Up the Church

[Guest]

Probably one of the best, most convincing, laid out arguments of traping a living general authority with his own words I've ever heard argued. Elder Ballard should be embarrassed of himself. Consigliere is masterful in crafting his exposé of Ballard, trapping him with his own words and building supportive evidence from other GA's that leaves Ballard with no where to hide. He literally backs Ballard into the perverbial corner and then drops the anvil of Ballard own making on him. Kaboom.

Edit to add: Ballard claims that the church has never hid anything from its membership, that church leaders are honest, that those who have questions and doubts just need to trust their church leaders. Consigliere then list 12-13 examples where the church has in fact hid, lied, whitewashed or used ellipses to alter, hide its history.

I can't recommend this podcast enough...this is a classic podcast episode, one for the ages

[_Chap]

Maybe, um, one of those www-y things? Y'know, what they call a ... watchamacallit ... er... LINK!!! Yeah, that's it, a link.

[_cwald]

http://www.mormondiscussionpodcast.org/ ... ee-mormon/

[_honorentheos]

It was definitely interesting. Consig was taking no prisoners.

[Guest]

It was definitely interesting. Consig was taking no prisoners.

Very good podcast.

I have a question, and please feel free to not answer.

Is Consig still a member? Because if he is, this is definitely grounds for church discipline and excommunication. He makes the church look, deserving so I might add, really bad. They kicked my ass out for way less than this.

PS. I'm surprised they haven't gone after Bill Reel and Glen Ostlund. You know they really really hate those guys.

[_Chap]

I almost never, ever, take the time to listen to Mormon-related podcasts - basically because i find it takes so much more time than it would to absorb the essential points of the same material presented in text form (For professional reasons, I am quite good at rapidly gutting a document through such techniques as diagonal reading.)

This one, however, I decided to listen to while shaving and showering. It turned out to be such a well-presented and fascinating talk that I continued to listen until it was finished. I'd say to any lurking Mormon: if you listen to anything, listen to this.

It's basically about recent public claims by apostles (Elder Ballard in particular) that the CoJCoLDS has 'never hidden anything about its history'. The podcast takes this claim to pieces, leaving not a wrack behind.

Example: did the church hide the 1832 First Vision account, which mentions only one personage in the vision, rather than the two in the better known version? (NB - the point is not whether this version is, on an objective estimate, an embarrassment to the church, but whether the church itself thought it was embarrassing enough to conceal it from members.)

Yup. Joseph Fielding Smith found this account in the 1930s, in a journal in Joseph Smith's own handwriting. He cut out the relevant pages with a pen-knife, and locked them away in his vault.

When the story eventually leaked to the press in the 1960s, JFS taped the pages back into the journal, and arranged for a young Master's student to 'discover' them, so that his previous concealment would be ... well, concealed. The Master's thesis in question was not however made available to the public - until it leaked to the (Mormon critic) Tanners, who published it.

And there are twelve other examples, all of which falsify the 'we never concealed anything' claim. The fact is, on the contrary, that top church leaders can be seen having concealed significant aspects of church history from the members over and over again.

The evidence base for that assertion is clear enough to convince any normal secular historian. The leadership simply lies to its members: meanwhile, it demands their unquestioning trust ...

[_cwald]

I almost never, ever, take the time to listen to Mormon-related podcasts - basically because i find it takes so much more time than it would to absorb the essential points of the same material presented in text form (For professional reasons, I am quite good at rapidly gutting a document through such techniques as diagonal reading.)
...

It's basically about recent public claims by apostles (Elder Ballard in particular) that the CoJCoLDS has 'never hidden anything about its history'. The podcast takes this claim to pieces, leaving not a wrack behind.

...
The evidence base for that assertion is clear enough to convince any normal secular historian. The leadership simply lies to its members: meanwhile, it demands their unquestioning trust ...

Yes. I agree. I would hope somebody would transcribe this podcast and put it up on the internet in written form. It is really well done and something I would like to have on the shelf as a resource.

[_Meadowchik]

I listened to it today and really enjoyed it. Number 12, the one about the Q&A seemed like the only truly speculative things there. Plausible, yet speculative. The rest, though, were hard-hitting.

EXCELLENT job and thanks for your podcast, Consigliere!

[_Shulem]

The presentation was a home run. Very well done. Crooked General Authorities are so lifted up in pride they must think they are immune of any kind of valid criticism and are utterly living in a sanitized bubble outside of reality. Mormon General Authorities are the epitome of pride and men who think they are above the judgment of the world.

Well, with that said, we can be glad that Ballard probably doesn't have much time left to spread his diseased religion on the earth. Soon, they will lower this mobster into the ground and cover him with dirt. Another yes man will simply take his place in the Twelve. The evolution of the church and its general authorities will have to deal with the Internet and the fact that this cult organization is exposed before the whole world to gawk at. History will not be kind to the memory of the cult and the mobsters that ran it. I like how Wikipedia already contains a variety of reports on various aspects of the cult, telling it like it was and is. That's just the opposite of how Mormonism reports things.

[_Stem]

Superb!