President Eyring…. No Not the LDS Apostle but his son Henry J Eyring, recently gave an address at BYUI titled “Gaining and Strengthening a Testimony” where he lays out logical fallacy after logical fallacy in order to justify belief in the Book of Abraham specifically and to deal with the criticisms of the Church collectively. Combine that with his having seemingly developed the same habit of reeling you in with his tears as he cries at the drop of a hat like his father and you can sense why Grandpa Eyring the Scientist is almost assuredly shaking his head in the grave.
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Audio of the Eyring Talk
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If the books of Abraham and Mormon were factual, there would be evidence to prove their essential story line. If this were the case, I could accept the fact that some details are biased or inflated, like many history books are. But there is Zero evidence of any any historical facts in these books. Eyring wants use to accept because we are not perfect that it is ok that the book of Abraham isn’t either. At lease I have evidence I exist. it seems the church is coming out more to defend the Book of Abraham. I believe it is as factual as the book of Mormon, which is that it is religious fiction.
RFM, I found you during the McKenna/Bishop interview leaks. You’re now one of my favorite podcasts to listen to.
(this is a copy of a comment I made on Bill’s post of this episode)
When you and Bill got to the part about Eyring saying he was worried about not making it to the Celestial kingdom when he was a Sunbeam, I thought for sure that was going to be one of the big two problems with this talk. I see that as being FAR worse than any Book of Abraham issues. We’re talking about a 3-7* year old kid being taught that he’s not good enough!
(I know that current Sunbeams are about 4 years old, but it could’ve been different in Eyring’s day. Yet he emphasized that he was very young, so I’d say he was probably in the 4-5 range. )
A precious, wonderful little 4 year old kid being taught he might not be good enough breaks my heart and blows my mind.
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Also, I don’t appreciate RFM jumping to conclusions and making unfounded inferences in this episode when you talk about all of Eyring’s personal interactions being with his mother and apostle Hal Sr not having time for anything more than a quick call due to his church duties. All of that is inference and speculation. Henry J’s talk here is not a comprehensive autobiography.
I listen to RFM specifically because you are logical and factual. I think you failed that test in part of this episode. Ironically it was immediately before Bill launched into a spiel about lawyers being being logical and factual.
There is archeological evidence of the Book of Mormon, just not in Central America where the corporation constantly insists it all happened, so they keep it buried because then they’d have to admit they were wrong this whole time.
As for the Book of Abraham. It so blatantly contradicts “what is written” (NT and BoM) that any thinking member (a stretch, I know) would reject it immediately.
I had to laugh at a lot of this talk from such an intellectual and spiritual crybaby.
One thing I noticed right off was him beginning his talk with the tired old trope about Mormon women being so much better at teaching (or spirituality or leading or insert desired quality here), yet here is the man, in front of us all, teaching and leading.
If his wife is so much better at teaching, he should shut up and let us hear from her instead. How arrogant must Mormon men be to believe that women are better than them at spirituality, yet continue to accept the mantle of spiritual leader in every circumstance?