The Socratic Method used by ADouglass

[ADouglass]

The opponent is a Mormon. For the use of this thread, I will refer to him as BW, as in, brick wall. I will refer to myself as D. And yes, I have a lot of time on my hands.

First, I showed him this website. catholic.com/library/Mormon_Stumpers.asp

BW: “A prayerful game of poker, unrepented, will bar the member from the temple and ultimate salvation.” There is your blatant lie.

D: Also, about the “prayerful game of poker”; can you explain that more. It’s been a while since I’ve been interviewed to go to a temple, so I’ve forgotten what exactly is asked. Are you saying that you can gamble, not repent of it, tell a bishop this, and he will give you a temple recommend anyway?

Here is what I found on the internet as a question that mormons have to answer during a temple recommend interview:

8 Do you strive to keep the covenants you have made, to attend your sacrament and other meetings, and to keep your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel?

How can someone admit to be striving to keep his life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel when one acknowledges that it is a sin to gamble, has gambled, and does not repent of it even when this is brought up in an interview and the bishop agrees that it is a sin and needs to be repented of?

BW: (not directly related, but stated nonetheless) If I decide it FEELS good then it must be right.

As far as “prayerful” poker game. Seriously? First, what in the world is prayerful poker? But regardless of that. Gambling is wrong, yes. But so is eating unhealthy. So is being lazy. So is saying a swear word. So is a billion other things. I’m not trying to justify gambling, just put it in perspective. I don’t believe a game of low stakes poker(say you play for $10) is considered a serious sin. It is wrong but it’s usually not that big a deal. It’s definitely not something you need to talk to your bishop about unless it becomes a big deal. It depends on the scale of your gambling. If you develop an addiction to gambling and spend a lot of money that is a big deal and something you need to work out possibly with the help of a bishop. But I’m not gonna lie. I like to play poker with my friends. I know some temple attending mormons that might even play for a little money sometimes. That’s wrong but not really a big deal. I don’t play for money. We may use little candies and the winner gets them all. Is that wrong? I don’t think so. If it is it’s definitely very minor and I wouldn’t normally give a second thought to it. So to say that an occasional bingo game or a prayerful game of poker will bar a member from the temple and ultimate salvation is a blatant lie. It is a VERY obvious(blatant) distortion of truth(lie). Yes we are asked to strive to live in harmony with the commandments. We can’t be perfect in doing that and we can’t be perfect in repenting of every individual sin. We must repent of every major sin, and strive to better ourselves all the time. If we are worthy enough (decided by our bishop hopefully with help from the Holy Ghost) we can go to the temple. A game of Bingo or a prayerful game of poker in itself is not going to keep you from the temple because it’s not a big deal. I once told the bishop I wasn’t sure I should go to the temple because I had developed a habit of swearing occasionally. He assured me that it was ok and to try not to swear anymore. If I told my bishop I played some poker he’d probably say the same kind of thing.

D: Once again you avoid the substance of what I said. Sure, playing poker without any money at stake is okay. What is obvious to anyone reading (in context) of what was meant by poker is that part of poker is having money at stake. Part of repenting is obviously making a commitment to strive to avoid sinning again. By not repenting, one is not striving to stop sinning. Simple as that.

“Prayerful poker” as I understood it is asking God if it is okay to play poker and then playing poker.

BW: Playing poker for a little bit of money is always wrong but not a big deal. simple as that. It won’t keep you from the temple. To me it is an obvious distortion of the truth

D:You have still failed to answer my question about poker adequately. I can understand that there are a lot of little sins one can commit and not remember or even be aware of, and hence won’t come up during a temple interview. But to know that you have sinned and not repent of it? That is the substance of what I said. Would your bishop have given you a temple recommend if you said you wouldn’t strive to stop swearing?

 

[ADouglass]

BW: Sorry I missed your last post. If I told my bishop I wouldn’t strive to stop swearing he would not give me a temple recommend. But at that point its not about swearing, it’s about the sin of rebellion against God and his servants. He’s holding a temple recommend from you not because you swear but because you refuse to do something reasonable that he asks of you. I think playing poker is comparable to swearing. Playing poker in itself is not a serious sin. High stakes poker might be considered a serious sin. Similar to if you are like some people who swear every other sentence, that might be serious. I very rarely hear talk about gambling from church leaders or in church articles. I very rarely hear talk of foul language. If you didn’t ask forgiveness for it and never even really tried to repent I believe that God might forgive you anyways as long as you don’t have that spirit of rebellion. Repentance is a commandment that I believe we can be forgiven for if we don’t do it completely right.

Anyways. Back to the whole point of this. I said it was a blatant lie. He says that we believe if a member of the church is prayerfully playing poker without repenting he is ultimately going to be kept from salvation. It honestly seems to me that can only be true if your belief that “prayerful unrepentant poker” (which sure sounds like an oxymoron to me) means “willful rebellion against council from a servant of god”. It really just seems obvious to me that he is distorting the truth by using that oxymoron.

I call it an oxymoron because how likely is it that a man is going to prayerfully consider playing poker while knowing that it is wrong to do so according to the church teachings which he already believes? Are you going to prayerfully consider sinning? If you didn’t believe it was a sin then you must not have very much faith in the church and obviously not going to the temple for your lack of faith anyways. What he said when you break it down can be looked at as a true statement, but he uses an example that is completely absurd to push an idea that is not true. His statement bends the truth so far as to make it backwards and untrue. Isn’t it obvious that’s what he is trying to do? When he uses the word unrepentant, playing poker immediately becomes irrelevant. He could have said prayerful unrepentant overeating or prayerful unrepentant swearing or prayerful unrepentant anything and the result is the same. If you’re unrepentant you’re not going to the temple period, it doesn’t matter how much you prayed about it or what you did.

D: Why can’t you just admit when you are wrong?

Everything you said in your last long post basically accepts that it wasn’t a blatant lie and at the same time you say that because of your view of that statement that was made about poker, you think it was a blatant lie. So, you both deny and accept it. Am I missing something? Oxymoron or not, you said that the gist of it was true.

To further illustrate my point about poker. “but committing any kind of sin and being unrepentant will keep you from the temple.” Gambling is a sin. Further, it was specifically stated that the sin must be unrepented of. Further, the reason “prayerful” was added is to show that even if you ask if you can sin, and you think you got an answer to allow you to sin, it is a sin nonetheless, thus showing that gambling is not a grey zone where the decision is not like the ones where you have multiple options that aren’t sinful, like whether or not to have an abortion if you were raped, or the victim of incest. I thought it was pretty clear what was meant by prayerful, given the context of what was written. Sure, you can say that prayerful sin is an oxymoron, if you take that statement out of context. Perhaps you should read what was written directly before that quote you took.

Here, just to make it easier: “There is no need for a member to pray for divine guidance or seek church approval for such activities, for there will be no divine or ecclesiastical finessing of morality to permit even an occasional bingo game.”

 

[ADouglass]

BW: “but committing any kind of sin and being unrepentant will keep you from the temple” What I meant by that is that any small sin will not keep you from the temple. The fact that you are unrepentant is what keeps you from the temple.

Doug I do believe it to be a blatant lie. I don’t believe any right-minded person would pray about doing something that they believed to be a sin. If you don’t believe it to be a sin you don’t believe a doctrine of the church and you aren’t considered a member of the church. So a prayerful game of poker by a member of the church is not going to happen.

When I said it is a true statement it depends on how you look at the word repentant. It is a true statement only if you say unrepentant means that you are an unrepentant person. But in that case it doesn’t even matter what the sin is you aren’t going to the temple if you’re unrepentant. When I said the statement is a blatant lie I look at it the way I thought the author intended: that unrepentant meant you sinned and then failed to repent for that sin so you can’t go to the temple. Because that is simply not true. I basically disregarded the word prayerful because It did not make sense to me that a member would pray about committing a sin.
Either way you look at it he is distorting the truth by either using an example that will not happen or by saying something that is just plain false.

anyways. I’m really starting to get tired of this argument. It really isn’t important and I’ve devoted more time to it than it deserves. I don’t really want to talk about this stuff anymore. None of this really proves anything. The only real proof about the truthfulness of the catholic church or mormon church can come through revelation by God. I really don’t think either one of us is growing in any way from this. I have received my own personal revelation that the LDS church is the true church of Jesus Christ. I don’t need to defend that position. If you sincerely have a question, I’m glad to offer (name removed by moderator)ut, but I shouldn’t try to prove it or try and defend what I believe.

I’m not going to try and provide any more evidence that the catholic church is a false church. My evidence could very well be flawed or even wrong in some instances. The fact that they don’t accept the book of Mormon as the word of God is all the evidence I will ever need. I know that book is true.

End note: And how does he know the book is true? “If I decide it FEELS good then it must be right.”

 

[ADouglass]

One more thought. Okay, let’s eliminate the word prayerful from the quote.

“A game of poker, unrepented, will bar the member from the temple and ultimate salvation; a prayerful, by-the-book abortion, unrepented, won’t.”

He considers a member to be a person who goes to his church and strives to keep the commandments. Most mormons know that it is wrong to gamble. So, it is safe to assume most members who gamble know they are sinning. To know that you are sinning and to fail to repent obviously entails an unrepentant attitude. Case closed.

 

[ADouglass]

D: Another thing I just realized that you might not have thought of, but I thought it was obvious. Is that a person might be a new member of the church and not have heard about the prohibition on gambling. The member might pray for divine guidance on whether or not to gamble. Perhaps not being as knowledgable about the “feelings” that prove whether something is right or wrong, like you, this person might mistake his own excitedness about gambling, and his past pleasure (a good feeling) associated with gambling as divine guidance. Later he could learn that it was a sin to gamble when he did after praying. If he refuses to repent, then he will not be allowed a temple recommend.