Question for Don Bradley

[Shulem]

I am always taken aback by your aggressive rudeness to people like Don.

I wonder if this gives new meaning in which you expressed, "I wish I were surprised to read that."

[ ] I think he's a bit of a coward.
[ ] I don't want to express more ill feelings towards him personally.
[ ] I'm almost done reading his faith promoting book which I judge as more religious nonsense.

Whatever. I'll never know.

[Shulem]

But you say it is MY problem that I am unwilling to cooperate with your rudeness and demanding behavior.

I don't know that I said that. I don't know if I even thought that.

But I will say, if you can't stand the heat in the kitchen, then go elsewhere. You are welcome to choose what threads you care to participate in and if you don't like the tone, then do something else with your time. Or, as it is, feel free to express your objections and disappointment.

Look, I don't expect you to "cooperate" with me but it would go a long way if you'd answer a question when someone needs clarification in order to understand what the hell you are thinking! Or is it you just want to play games?

[Shulem]

It is not that I disagree with the positions that people take. I agree that the Book of Mormon is at the very least racialist, if not racist. I do not approve of the methods of many LDS apologists, and I don't agree with their arguments.

The purpose of this thread was to gain an understanding of how Bradley perceives racism in the Book of Mormon and to answer exactly what he meant by genetic isolation and what is his current position on racism in the Book of Mormon. I purchased his book and have spent time reading what he has to say. I felt it was reasonable to enquire and expected an answer.

So, Kish, it's up to the individual to decide whether Bradley denies racism in the Book of Mormon based on skin color because he refuses to speak up. One can only guess if he sides with lying apologists who claim the skin of blackness was an animal skin or charcoal decorations rubbed on their body so everyone would know they are the bad people.

[Shulem]

Don is not afraid of Shulem.

Don should do the right thing and come and answer the question. He needs to clarify what he meant and state his position.

I need to finish reading his book...

[Rivendale]

Rude? I didn't post that as a rude comment. Because I disagree with his analysis of his reasons for returning to Mormonism? You denigrate people all the time calling them lazy, stupid and far worse.

[drumdude]

The last time Don appeared here it didn't seem to create intriguing arguments as to why he went from Atheism back to Mormonism. The Hart Book he told us to read was not impressive and he has had similar outcomes on other platforms. (Search exmormon reddit and you will find him using the same arguments).

I’m genuinely interested in why he went from atheism to Mormonism. Not to attack his change of heart, but to understand it. I think a lot of his defenders confuse frustration over that lack of a detailed reasoning for an attack on his faith itself.

I found his answers on the topic lacking, but it’s not his job to explain things he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t owe anyone anything.

[Rivendale]

The last time Don appeared here it didn't seem to create intriguing arguments as to why he went from Atheism back to Mormonism. The Hart Book he told us to read was not impressive and he has had similar outcomes on other platforms. (Search exmormon reddit and you will find him using the same arguments).

I’m genuinely interested in why he went from atheism to Mormonism. Not to attack his change of heart, but to understand it. I think a lot of his defenders confuse frustration over that lack of a detailed reasoning for an attack on his faith itself.

I found his answers on the topic lacking, but it’s not his job to explain things he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t owe anyone anything.

Did you listen to the BYP interview with him? Kerry was cordial but provided civil pushback that mirrors what the frustrations many of us feel. When you conflate Mormon culture with apologetics it mimicks poor communication with people who genuinely like to learn from his knowledge.

[drumdude]

I’m genuinely interested in why he went from atheism to Mormonism. Not to attack his change of heart, but to understand it. I think a lot of his defenders confuse frustration over that lack of a detailed reasoning for an attack on his faith itself.

I found his answers on the topic lacking, but it’s not his job to explain things he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t owe anyone anything.

Did you listen to the BYP interview with him? Kerry was cordial but provided civil pushback that mirrors what the frustrations many of us feel. When you conflate Mormon culture with apologetics it mimicks poor communication with people who genuinely like to learn from his knowledge.

Ill have to check it out.

The only way I’ve been able to come close to a good discussion with believing Mormons is to deliberately enclose my questions in a “compliment sandwich.”

You have to say one positive thing, then ask the question, then end with another positive thing. It feels like treating them with kid gloves, but it’s really the only way to make them feel safe enough to engage.

DCP, for example, typically won’t answer a question if proper deference isn’t demonstrated first.

[Moksha]

Shulem, I think Kish got his feathers ruffled because he is friends with Don. Don seems like a really nice guy, but it might put him in an untenable employment situation to opine about LDS racial policies of the past. Explaining how a racially based curse extends to Asiatic DNA is something the Mormon Church wishes to avoid.

Skin color curses woven into Church history is a losing argument and ultimately costs the Church future converts, since the Evangelicals have a firm lock on the White Nationalist movement, no matter how firmly conservative members of the Church embrace this form of racism. But it might be harmful to Don to speak out against this and risk having the BYU muskets trained on him.

Kish is a nice guy too.

[I Have Questions]

Don,

I know you are deeply familiar with the following racial verse in the Book of Mormon:

And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a  skin of blackness to come upon them.

I trust you are familiar with the content of a recent article at SCRIPTURE CENTRAL: What Is the “Skin of Blackness” in the Book of Mormon?

• For many modern readers, these and similar passages in the Book of Mormon are understandably jarring in their seemingly “racist concepts of nonwhite racial inferiority as contrasted with white racial superiority.”

• “Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse.”

• Despite this pronouncement, some scholars persist in reading the Book of Mormon through an old racial lens, albeit often with the twist that this lens actually subverts the racism of the nineteenth century.

• Likewise, the “skin of blackness” Nephi describes falling upon the Lamanites was not necessarily physical but was given in the context of some people violating the Lord’s covenant and thereby being “cut off from the presence of the Lord,” bringing upon themselves the sore cursing that Lehi had warned of previously.

• It is easy—even natural—for modern readers of the Book of Mormon to intuitively see contemporary sensibilities regarding race and skin color in passages about a “skin of blackness” or “dark skins,” but such interpretations are misplaced when reading an ancient text.

So, I was wondering what your position on this matter is because I resumed reading your book (The Lost 116 Pages) and came upon this statement (emphasis added):

Nephi attributed to the curse several secondary effects on the Lamanites: "because of their cursing which was upon them they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey" (2 Ne. 5:21-24). To keep his own people from this curse, Nephi prophetically prohibits the Nephites from marrying Lamanites, claiming that the Lamanites were marked with "a skin of blackness" to discourage such intermarriage (vv. 21-23).

However, despite their genetic and geographical isolation, the Lamanites were to fulfill an important function in the Nephite covenant. If Nephi's people failed to keep God's commandments—a condition for their prospering in their land of promise—then:

[The Lamanites] shall be a scourge unto [Nephi's] seed, to stir them up in remembrance of me; and insomuch as they will not hearken unto me, and hearken unto my words, they shall scourge them even unto destruction. (2 Ne. 5:25)

This threat and promise would shape much of the rest of Nephite history.

Nephi, Laman, and Lemuel were brothers having the same mother and father. Please explain your use of genetic in association with seed as it relates to the curse at hand.

Thank you.

Shulem

I think this is a fair question to ask the author. If the author isn’t prepared to answer (and by now he knows the question has been asked), then that undermines his credibility as a historian and as an author. Don doesn’t need to enter into any discussion, he can write out the answer and simply post it on a blog somewhere he has protection from comments etc. He could send the answer in an email to Kish with permission to publish it here on his behalf. It’s a very simple question with presumably a very simple answer. What’s the problem?

I’d guess Moksha is right. That the answer is around racism and Don is too scared to be explicit about what he meant. The Church seems to have been the one consistent anchor in his life. He needs that anchor. So he’s not going to throw it overboard for the sake of answering a question about what he wrote.