As we pick up with the difficult racial quotes this week, I want to start again with the disclaimer that neither I nor anyone else at FAIR agrees with or condones the words and attitudes on display in these comments. I am not defending their use. I am just putting some history and context back into them, so that we can all approach them with a little more knowledge than we may have previously held. That doesn’t make them easier to digest. Some of them are pretty awful, and it’s incredibly difficult for me to understand how someone can hold those views about other children of God.
Apologetics
Asking Big Questions: How Can I Find and Evaluate Sources of Truth?
By Craig Lindquist
The “Asking Big Questions” series is made in cooperation with the Wilford Woodruff Papers Project.
We live in a day of confusion, even chaos. The world over, people are searching for truth on a host of subjects—but how can anyone know? It is not an easy search. Who do we trust? Where do we look? How do we know if something is in fact true? If the subject we seek to verify is purely secular, such as historical or even mathematical information, the search for the truth can be fairly easy given today’s technology.
But what do we do when our search for truth goes beyond what can be googled or found in a science book? Where can we look, and who can we trust when we want to know of eternal truths?
By Study and Faith – Episode 3: Logic
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by Zachary Wright
Introduction
If you’ve ever listened to an argument, you’ve probably heard someone angrily protest to the other “You’re not being logical!”, or something to that effect. When I heard the term “logic” previously, I usually thought of things like “facts” or “math,” or even more vague ideas like “things that make sense.” This is mostly true, but there’s a bit more to it than that – and that “bit more” is what we’re going to talk about today. Logic, at its core, is a methodology for creating and evaluating arguments (1). Of course, when I say “arguments” I don’t mean shouting matches like the one in the previous example, rather, I mean “a reason given for or against a matter under discussion” (2). We make these kinds of arguments daily: at work, at home, and even in church. You see, we as people run into problems, and have to make decisions all the time to survive, maintain relationships, and accomplish the tasks we set for ourselves. As critical thinkers, it’s important to understand what “logic” is, because logic is key in helping us convince other people of our ideas, evaluate the arguments of others, and can help us make those decisions based on the information we have obtained (like from the good sources we learned to evaluate in our last article). No matter who you are, logic can help you accomplish your goals, make informed decisions, and be the kind of people God wants us to be. That being said, there is a lot of information to cover. First, we’re going to be talking about the history and basics of logic, then we’re going to talk about how to make a logical argument, then finally we’ll talk about the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning. Let’s begin. [Read more…] about By Study and Faith – Episode 3: Logic
Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 20: The Early Church – Blacks and the Church [A]
We’re now moving into one of the most controversial topics in our church’s history, the Priesthood restriction for black members of African descent. Like plural marriage, this is a topic that comes with a lot of emotion behind it. People have very strong feelings about this part of our history, and for good reason. I’m no exception to that. I’ll be discussing quotes, attitudes, and beliefs that I personally find appalling.
But like I always say, history is messy. Expecting it to be easy is naïve.
There are two things that are absolutely imperative to understand when we’re talking about these things.
By Study and Faith – Episode 2: Evaluating Sources
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by Zachary Wright
Introduction
In the last article in this series, we discussed some elementary ideas behind critical thinking. We showed how critical thinking skills like asking questions and evaluating worldviews may help deal with controversial topics behind LDS theology and history. Now, those skills are essential for approaching a controversial topic. Even so, we still have a long way to go to improve our critical thinking skills and achieve our goal to learn “by study and by faith.” That prompts some questions though: What should we be asking questions about? What worldviews can we practice identifying? The short answer to these questions is “You can use these skills on whatever you want,” but to do that, we need to first go over how to evaluate which sources are good and which ones are not. We’ll be focusing on that topic today. Specifically, I’ll be going over what makes a good source in general, what makes a good source from a historical perspective, and then give an example of how I would deal with a historical source. Let’s get into it. [Read more…] about By Study and Faith – Episode 2: Evaluating Sources
Asking Big Questions: How Can I Find Answers to Gospel Questions on the Internet?
By Maddie Christensen
The “Asking Big Questions” series is made in cooperation with the Wilford Woodruff Papers Project.
In today’s digital age, the Internet has become an indispensable tool for accessing information on any topic imaginable. With just a few keystrokes and a click of a button, one can easily find answers to any question that comes to mind. Googling questions has become a ubiquitous activity that many of us engage in on a daily basis. [Read more…] about Asking Big Questions: How Can I Find Answers to Gospel Questions on the Internet?
Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 19: The Early Church – Polygamy [D]
One of the Church history topics I find the most fascinating is that of the Nauvoo Expositor and the lead-up to and aftermath of the martyrdom.
My first real exposure to the story of the Expositor was as a sophomore in high school in Utah. An anti-LDS substitute math teacher decided to take it upon himself to lecture us on the evil censorship of the church many of us in the class belonged to. Looking back now, I can see how wildly inappropriate it was for a substitute teacher to bring this up in order to harass and criticize the religious beliefs of a bunch of teenagers who were just trying to learn pre-calculus. But unfortunately, at the time it wasn’t that unusual for us to have teachers who didn’t like the church. It didn’t occur to us that these teachers were crossing way over the line by actually vocalizing that dislike in class.
[Read more…] about Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 19: The Early Church – Polygamy [D]
Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 18: The Early Church – Polygamy [C]
Sorry for taking so long to get this posted! I’ve been putting in more than 60 hours a week at work lately, and I just didn’t have time to properly research this post until now.
This week, the topic under discussion is Joseph’s wives and the way that he personally practiced plural marriage. It’s true that some of the circumstances a little unusual compared to how later members practiced it, and it’s also true that sealing practices in general were unusual compared to how we practice them today. The world was also very different in the 1840s than it is today in the 2020s.
All of that means that it can be very difficult for us to understand what was going on and why. I’m going to do my best to break this all down so that it makes sense, but just remember, it’s okay if it makes you uncomfortable. It’s okay if you don’t like the idea of plural marriage. It’s okay if you don’t ever want to practice it. I don’t, either.
[Read more…] about Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 18: The Early Church – Polygamy [C]
By Study and Faith – Episode 1: What is Critical Thinking?
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by Zachary Wright
Have you ever wanted to problem-solve better? Not just the daily issues we deal with, but the massive world-changing problems we deal with constantly? What about wanting to be more effective in your study? Have you ever wanted to learn to differentiate between what’s true and what’s not? Maybe you’re not as ambitious, but you want to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ and learn more about Him and His gospel. All these skills, and more, apply at least some form of critical thinking skills, and I’m here to help you learn how to be a more effective critical thinker. [Read more…] about By Study and Faith – Episode 1: What is Critical Thinking?
Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 17: The Early Church – Polygamy [B]
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we’re frequently taught to value honesty. Primary children sing “I Believe in Being Honest.” Our 13th Article of Faith declares openly that we believe in being honest. It’s actively encouraged by our Apostles. Our temple recommend question was recently updated from, “Are you honest in your dealings with your fellow man?” to the even wider-reaching, “Do you strive to be honest in all that you do?” Our scriptures teach us to deal with men honestly and to be open and honest in our conversation and renounce the hidden things of dishonesty, because those with honest hearts are accepted by the Lord, while liars will be thrust down to Hell.
[Read more…] about Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 17: The Early Church – Polygamy [B]
