For those reading this thread looking for evidence that Mormons aren’t goose-stepping, Salt Lake-obeying zombies, please ignore the comments suggesting that Mormons would happily slaughter children if their leaders told them to.

I think your argument about a united FP/Q12 steals at least one base. That unity doesn’t just happen all at once. Sometimes, it takes them years to reach a consensus. If it takes those 15 men 5 years to come to agreement on a proposition, at what point in those 5 years did the proposition become morally right? If 11 agree and 1 dissents, is it morally right? And if it takes those very good men years sometimes to reach agreement on the rightness of wrongness of a proposal, why should we be impatient with one another if it takes us even longer?

That said, if the FP/Q12 unitedly commanded the Church to vote a certain way, I would still pray for confirmation that I should comply. If the united command was to participate in the wholesale slaughter of any group, the confirmation from God via the Holy Ghost would need to be unmistakably strong and unambiguous. Otherwise I would reject it out of hand — even if it cost me my membership. If you would do otherwise, you need serious help. If most Mormons would do otherwise, Dawkins, et al, might just be right.

I’m making a logical not practical argument. If there is only one source of moral truth (God, which we access through the Holy Ghost and Light of Christ), then moral disagreements can arise only if one or both of the parties are referencing an alternative moral source. Therefore, to critique a moral decision of the church, a person must necessarily (a) assert that the brethren were not led by the Holy Ghost or Light of Christ in their decision or (b) assert that they have or are a source of moral truth superior to the Holy Ghost and Light of Christ.

Ray, the priesthood issue is a great example — most Mormons don’t believe the church’s pre-1978 policy was morally wrong.

JNS, my claim is epistemological, not ontological. God is our source of moral truth, through the Holy Ghost and Light of Christ, even if truth is ontologically independent of God. (Or alternatively, moral truth can be accessed independent of God and Holy Ghost and Light of Christ.)

Sam B., I’m not suggesting that most Mormons would have participated in MMM, I’m suggesting that had a unified FP and Q12 said MMM was the right thing to do, members today (by definition, almost — people who objected to MMM would likely have left the church) would consider those who participated to be the good guys. That’s why the man who refused this instruction:

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

Is the bad guy in your Sunday School discussion.

If there is no other, independent moral source, then when someone rejects or opposes the brethren on a moral matter they are necessarily arguing that they, and not the brethren, are inspired by the Light of Christ and the Holy Ghost.

Matt,
You’re creating an unnecessary dichotomy here. Nobody’s arguing that either the Brethren are inspired or that person is inspired, but not both. What JNS, et al., are arguing—correctly–is that the Church is not the font of all truth. Rather, it is the best source of truth but, because it is mediated by imperfect mortals—very good mortals, but imperfect nonetheless—that sometimes they get things wrong (whether it be because of personal preference, misunderstanding, personal history, or whatever: it doesn’t have to be a bad act that leads to it), or promulgate a preference where God has not demanded it.

When they tell us what God wants for us, we have the right (and, in fact, the duty) to make sure that is God’s will for us. If it isn’t, we are obligated to not do it (although, as Frank has pointed out in the past, we should probably create a pretty high threshold to overcome, giving the leadership the benefit of the doubt).

Which is to say, MMM was wrong. Even if it had been ordered by the combined FP and Q12 (which it wasn’t, but indulge the hypothetical), it was definitely something that each individual should have confirmed, and would have gotten a negative answer.

Contra you (and Ronan, although he was tongue-in-cheek, I believe), I sincerely doubt the majority of members today would participate in such a massacre, even with a unanimous declaration. Unfortunately, when it happened, it happened in a perfect storm that I don’t think is recreatable today. And I’m not denying that some Mormons would participate, but they would be wrong, and responsible for their failure to independently confirm that it was God’s will.

The fact that you are still pushing the fictional idea that Brad or I are arguing that some source of moral truth other than the Holy Ghost or Light of Christ is necessary is simply outrageous. You haven’t read our arguments; you are fighting with shadows and clowns of your own invention. You are not a charitable interlocutor; instead, you are acting as if this conversation is a contest for you to win at any cost.

This is, of course, one of the problems that drives the issue in Mark’s original post. If we treat winning abstract arguments as our unique goal, then we impose arbitrary and unnecessary pain on real people — pain that the gospel teaches us not to impose.

Mark in Portland, thanks for your comments. I think real experience like yours is powerful in ways that abstract argument — even the prophetic kind, like Mark’s post — just isn’t.