Circle Squared
A Textual Analysis of the Book of Mormon
Chapter 6: "Double Down"
Chapter Summary:
The Lord will recover Israel in the last days--The world will be burned with fire--Men must follow Christ to avoid the lake of fire and brimstone. About 544–421 B.C.
In the grand tradition set by his big brother Nephi of copying and pasting the work of other men, Jacob basically steals Zenos' prophecy (which was first stolen from Isaiah) and calls it his own:
"1 ...this is my prophecy--that the things which this prophet Zenos spake... must surely come to pass."
If the reiteration of another person's fatuous prediction is all it takes to make a prophecy, then my ultra-conservative cousin who constantly posts conspiracy garbage from Glenn Beck on her Facebook page must be a prophetess. In all seriousness, however, this idea (that multiple people asserting the same unfounded nonsense about the future somehow gives their collective claims credibility) is advocated many times in the Book of Mormon as a perfectly rational reason to believe a given proposition.
There is a name for this type of fallacy: an argument from popularity. But, Mormons love to give this fallacious argument a splash of color by adding to it another fallacy: an argument from authority.
The Book of Mormon clearly indicates--multiple times--that if several people claim to be prophets and they all make the same predictions, this is enough to justify taking them at their word. And if this isn't reason enough to believe them without any evidence, Jacob reminds us that should we not accept these bald assertions, hell and fire and brimstone await us in the hereafter. Typical religious fear mongering. I will not surrender my reasoning faculties to bullies who attempt to scare me into belief. I will not be spoken to in that tone of voice.
Jacob returns to another idea of his brother Nephi: that those who do not accept these claims in order to avoid damnation, do so out of stubbornness:
"4 ...and they are a stiffnecked and a gainsaying people; but as many as will not harden their hearts shall be saved in the kingdom of God."
I can't speak to the motivations of other nonbelievers, but I left the Mormon Church for intellectual reasons and personal integrity. If any stubbornness on my part has ever influenced my religious beliefs, it was in the opposite direction.
For many years, I feared the potential fallout of my disbelief, especially with my family. I "stamped out my doubts," as Mormons put it, for years, stubbornly clinging to the religion of my upbringing to avoid hurting people close to me. Once my belief in Mormonism vanished, threats of hell, like Jacob's, had no effect on me. Why would they? I didn't believe.
Such threats could only sway those who are either suppressing belief--which is what some believers think of all atheists--or those who are on the fence about their beliefs and the indoctrination of their youth still creeps in at times. At any rate, threats of hell never seem to create thoughtful, devout believers, but rather those who believe out of fear-based ignorance. Some people call this sort of thing "fire insurance."
Tell me, do you think an omnipotent and omniscient god would not be able to see through such gullible devotion? Do you think god would reward those who believe out of fear over those who withhold belief until they have well-reasoned arguments and evidence to support it? Apparently this is exactly how Mormons think of their god. To them, it seems better to feign belief--just in case--than to "stubbornly" cling to intellectual integrity and honesty.
Jacob reiterates yet again the idea that many people have prophesied concerning the advent of Jesus and that this should be enough to believe it, and if you don't believe based solely on the testimony of ancient men, hell awaits you:
"8 Behold, will ye reject these words? Will ye reject the words of the prophets; and will ye reject all the words which have been spoken concerning Christ, after so many have spoken concerning him; and deny the good word of Christ, and the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, and quench the Holy Spirit, and make a mock of the great plan of redemption, which hath been laid for you?"
"9 Know ye not that if ye will do these things, that the power of the redemption and the resurrection, which is in Christ, will bring you to stand with shame and awful guilt before the bar of God?"
Most of the remainder of the chapter goes on like this in vain attempts to scare the reader in to believing unfounded assertions.
These last words of Jacob (I know, it's a short book) contain a verse which Mormons love:
"12 O be wise; what can I say more?"
On the surface, I suppose this is "wise" advice. That is, until you read the verse in context of what Jacob advocates as wisdom: believe the words of ancient prophets, or else. Any god that would advocate this kind of wisdom surely does not understand the meaning of the word.