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I’m not sure that you understand my thesis. You’ve taken one very small part of this post and zoned in on that entirely. It is not even that significant compared to what I was trying to say.
But if you must:
You could say that Benson is a modern apostle, because he is not ancient. But, he did live in a very different time than we do now, in the midst of the Cold War, red scare, and during a time when communism and socialism were (falsely) synonymous. And the term humanism, as Benson uses it, is probably meant to be secularism, but we should acknowledge that humanist is a vague term. It can actually mean a lot of things, first applied in the renaissance just to describe the increase in knowledge that humans gained about their world. Also, it is pretty ridiculous at this point to claim that there isn't any validity to organic evolution. I'm sorry but Science just trumps Benson there. My point in mentioning all of that is to point out that apostles are subject to human error. His main idea that the Book of Mormon combats falsehood is sound, so that is cool. But the rest is not hard core evidence that socialism is “evil”.
And, I don't really deny that Marx was secular (and an atheist), I just deny that this fact automatically makes everything he said wrong (no more than Einstein was wrong about his theories, just because his religious beliefs were vague). Like it or not, the United Order still more closely mirrors his ideas than any other form of government we're practicing today. A heck of a lot more than the Republican platform, if we're being honest.
(to be continued) -
Of course, the D&C student manual does make a point about that. But before I get into that, I've got to point out the incorrectness of a lot of what is said in the student manual. For one, they again make the mistake of using the terms communism and socialism synonymously. The words in this manual were originally coined in a time when that was the standard (cold war, etc.). But it doesn't make it factual (the most glaring difference between the two is that socialism is not entirely communal the way communism is). The most obvious error in the manual is to say that Joseph Smith attended a conference on socialism. Marx wrote his manifesto in 1848, it didn’t become widely known for years after (more like the 1880s). Since Joseph Smith was dead in 1844... well, you see the problem? The term socialism was actually coined in the 1830s (during the French Revolution) but it meant a different thing then that it did after the advent of Marx. I suppose Joseph Smith could have attended some kind of conference that used the term socialism, but the D&C manual erroneously applies it to the way we understand Socialism today.
Either way, the crux of the thing seems to be that the big difference is that the United Order will be led by God and will be divine, and we will all actively participate. Socialism is a manmade government institution that forces us... blah, blah, blah. To that, I have pretty much the same response as I did to Dani in the comments above. That is not the fault of the system of government, but of people's attitudes toward it. If we all actively participated in socialism of our own free will because we saw that it was just the most efficient way to better society and care for our fellow man... well, there'd just be little difference left between that and the United Order.
And I would argue it is going to be necessary to come to that point. You people seem to think we are going to moving along fighting for and living pretty much the OPPOSITE of the United Order, and the Lord will suddenly show up and turn everything around. When has He EVER worked like that? If 40 years wandering in the wilderness has taught us nothing else, it is that the Lord always, ALWAYS requires us to show a willingness to live a higher law before he institutes it. Maybe the answer isn't exactly socialism (although I bet it looks like it), I can just sure heck guarantee it is not an anti-government state that lacks any semblance of a social safety net.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
In Typical Form
For anyone else, the title to this post would have read, "In Rare Form," but not everyone can consistently lay down the law like Leah Marie. Let's take a peak shall we? Oh, by the way, if you need some background to understand this exchange, go here. Enjoy!
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"If we really did our homework and approached the Book of Mormon doctrinally, we could expose the errors and find the truths to combat many of the current false theories and philosophies of men, including socialism, humanism, organic evolution, and others."
http://www.lds.org/liahona/1977/05/jesus-christ-gifts-and-expectations?lang=eng&query=socialism
If you choose to listen to a modern apostle (something that is not a negotiable Mormon belief), then I don't see how you could correctly believe in socialism or Marxism (a form of humanism). You are right that not every Mormon has the same religious beliefs. That doesn't mean that they are all correct, but that there is a lot of error.
Here is an excellent treatise on the subject from the D&C Manual:
http://www.lds.org/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-student-manual/enrichments/enrichment-l-the-law-of-consecration-and-stewardship?lang=eng&query=socialism
And here is an excerpt from that lesson:
"Some have suggested that the practice of the law of consecration and the system of the united order are only a religious kind of socialism or communism. Others assert that it was a development either from the economic philosophies of Joseph Smith’s day or from communal experiments within the new religion. Such assumptions are false. The Prophet Joseph Smith attended a presentation on socialism in September 1843 at Nauvoo. His response was to declare that he “did not believe the doctrine” (History of the Church, 6:33)."