I have accused (correctly) many critics
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of lacking intellectual
integrity and honesty; however, I have tried to be consistent in that regard by
calling up lousy pro-LDS apologetic works, too, such as the following:
Recently, Greg Trimble has written a pretty lousy piece which also
shows him to hold to a strong form of determinism, contrary to the LDS view of the nature of human-free will (but that is a discussion for another day):
Highlights of this piece is that the Church must be true as the
name of Joseph Smith’s mother, Lucy,
[C]omes
from the Latin meaning of “light” or “light bringer” or “light bearer.” So this
“light bringer” lady was born, that happened to bring a boy into this world
whom she named Joseph. Did she realize that when she named her fifth child
Joseph, that the Hebrew meaning of his name meant “God will give increase” or
“God will add to.”
Using Trimble’s “logic,” I will prove that John Thomas
(1805-1871), the founder of the Christadelphian movement (a group that I have
studied in some detail [I am perhaps one of, if not the most informed Latter-day Saint on this group]) was raised up by
God in His providence as Christadelphians believe. Observe the following
irrefutable proofs (I came up with the following in less than 20 minutes,
showing how easy it is to come up with similar arguments to those of Trimble):
·
John
Thomas wrote his major theological work, Elpis
Israel (“Hope of Israel”) in 1848 which discussed, in part, the return of
the Jews to Israel. One hundred years later (1948) the nation state of Israel
would be founded. Coincidence? I think not.
·
Thomas
served as the ship's surgeon on the Marquis of Wellesley when, in 1832, while
fearing for his life during a storm, he swore to God he would not rest to find
the Truth if his life were to be spared. His "calling" powerfully
mirrors the calling of the apostles who were fisherman prior to Jesus' call (cf.
Matt 4:18-19)
·
The
name “John” means “Yahweh/Jehovah is gracious,” no doubt proving that God was
gracious in giving the world Dr. John Thomas to rediscover the true Gospel.
·
John
Thomas was a trained medical doctor; no doubt, this is a parallel to Jesus, who
was the ultimate doctor/healer, so John Thomas must be a type of Jesus.
·
John
Thomas was born 12 April and died 5 March. On these dates, two popes died: Pope
Julius I (12 April, 352) and Pope Lucius I (March 5, 254). It is well known
that Thomas identified Rome as the Great Whore in the book of Revelation in his
5-volume work, Eureka! No doubt, in His divine providence, God used this as a
sign of the truth of Thomas' work on the subject.
·
The
name of John Thomas' wife was "Ellen," derived from the Greek root
meaning light/torch/bright, no doubt, the name being reflective of her
husband's rediscovering the true gospel or "light."
Please note: I do not believe any of these “evidences” are
meaningful evidence for Christadelphian claims. However, it does show that the
purported “evidence” that Trimble presented to be utter nonsense.
I call upon my fellow LDS apologists to reject such silly “evidences”
in favour of our claims.
