How Many GAs and Higher-Ups Really Know?

THOUGHTS

Idk. I've asked the same question here myself. Have you read any of the experiences listed in the message list about encounters with GAs and Higher-ups? There are some interesting accounts there.

My suspicion is...not many because they never research or study it out...or truly listen.

I had an experience with my former Mission President who is a member of the Quorum of 70 now.

I discussed a few of my issues with him and he said the same thing that my brother who has never been more than an Elder's Quorum Secretary said, "Oh I've heard all the anti-Mormon talking points and none of it has ever bothered me."

The truth is they haven't, so how could it bother them. What they've heard are the Mormon talking points in SS lessons and Quorum meetings and on their missions ... most of which bear no resemblance whatsoever to the concerns of those who actually have studied it out for themselves.

At the end, I was given the lamest testimony which was essentially this, "I always come back to realize that there is a place in the Middle East with the same name of the river that is described in the Book of Mormon. How could Joseph have known THAT?!"

Seriously, that was it. These people aren't looking to find out if it's all believable. They are merely looking for the thinnest of reasons to give themselves permission to believe. And in the end you CAN believe anything you want....so

http://dadsprimalscream.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/believability/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2012 07:07PM by dadsprimalscream.

Six.

About half know. They are stuck in a similar dilemma as little-people, former TBMs who want to hold their lives together despite what they have learned.

I don't think any of them allow themselves enough brainpower to truly "know." I think they enjoy living in their bubbles of la-dee-da and don't think much about it or any peons otherwise.

I haven't interacted personally with any high up church leaders myself but from the accounts Steve Benson has posted and also from Tom Phillips' interview with John Dehlin it seems like they are just like anyone else. They read the Book of Mormon and had some good feelings about so they just hold on to that and ignore everything else. Because of their position I am sure most of them have been forced to learn about some of the difficult issues but I think they just use the same kind of techniques and justifications to ignore them that any run of the mill member uses when they start finding out uncomfortable facts.

Here's some Thoughts.....They think they know the church is true.
I don't think they know, I think they feel its true.
As for knowing its false, I don't think they know its false, I think they think times were different back then or some other Mormon cliche to avoid really having to think too much about the problems. Plus, they think they are doing good.

Faith conquers facts.

Two examples of that are D. Michael Quinn and my brother.

If ANYONE knows the problematic nooks and crannies of Mormonism it's Quinn. Yet he still believes, even after being excommunicated, that the Book of Mormon is an actual record of actual inhabitants. He believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that the Church today has true priesthood authority.

My brother is an institute director. I know he knows the problems with the Church because I have laid them out for him carefully and completely. His reply every time is that it really doesn't matter since the Church is true etc. He KNOWS it's true so no evidence can make it false.

That is the approach of the GAs.

Know what? That they are Satanic? THey all do and are proud of it. I AM NOT KIDDING!

When Jesus was a no-show for the Q15 meetings... that certainly was A Clue tho, wasn't it?

Not necessarily. Everyone else in Mormonism is lead by "revelation" which comes through their mind rather than personal visits. The apostles have grown up with this same mindset that all Mormons and ex-Mormons on here were raised with. They might really think they are still lead by God, even though they've never had a "vision" like JS, etc. used to have.

If you look how Holland deliberately circumnavigates the truth, it's obvious to me he knows the problems. He's been caught lying enough times to show he's a lying piece of crap. He knows.

I think they survive to become GAs because they train themselves not to think about it or to believe regardless.

My mother seems to think that she will be extra blessed for maintaining her belief in spite of evidence against. She got the warm fuzzies and that was enough to convince her in spite of all evidence against.

That was one powerful meme that Joseph created - controlling the interpretation of the warm-fuzzies. If this meme lodges in a brain first, it is pretty hard to shift it. It is a variant of superstitious thinking.

The next clever thing was reducing the opportunities for competing warm-fuzzies (or learning that they have an alternate explanation) by restricting fun substances and creating a fear and disdain for of other churches.

I don't think Joseph did these things deliberately - hundreds or thousands of new American churches and sects sprung up over the last 250 years. The others withered away - like the Shakers who were into celibacy - and it just so happens that the surviving church is the Mormons (including the dozens of sects here) because they happened to have a convergence of successful memes and practises.

I agree, I think Holland really knows.

Anyone who has ever fallen in love (lust?) with another person has had personal experience with perceptive filters in place. Mormons have had a life long experience with a similar process. Anything which conflicts with the emotional state becomes invisible.

Plato's allegory of the cave - anyone who has turned around and looked out of the cave does not become a GA or higher-up.

I'm reminded of this passage from 1984:

"The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of DOUBLETHINK. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world."

Doublethink is what allows a church leader to remain firm in his conviction that Mormonism is true at the same time understand that certain items (or even the whole thing) may not necessarily be true.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/2012 11:35AM by runtu.

I think probably most of them.

Almost twenty years ago, they were willing to buy the salamander letter from Mark Hoffman. That tells us that they are afraid of the public gaining access to the early history of Joseph's Myth, and willing to spend large sums of money to prevent it.

Steve Benson laid this out beautifully in a thread here, probably a month or so ago..?

It doesnt really matter whether they believe it or not. What matters is that they are loyal enough to the organization that they will say what ever they need to to convince the rank and file member to think they believe.