Comments on: The Atonement as a Matter of Intelligence

By: Brenden

Brenden — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:54:12 +0000

“Those other people, however, speculated on or taught things which did contradict what most church members believed in. Thus the fact that their ideas were based upon observable evidence and sound reasoning made their ideas all the more dangerous.”

I don’t know about any ‘observable evidence’ or ‘sound reasoning’ in the matters they were ex-ed for–as I recall Margaret Tuscano advocated praying to Heavenly Mother instead of the Father, among other things. It was pure speculation on their part, which they went so far as to preach as doctrine at church venues, and say the leaders of the church were wrong to say otherwise. They refused to recant when given the opportunity, & put their criticism and complaints in the public forum. That is called apostasy by any standard. It is not that their ideas were reasonable, observable or dangerous, it was because they were patently false by LDS doctrinal standards. They are welcome to believe them and preach them if they want, but not to proclaim them as something they are not, or that they think they should be. So the church put them where they could do just that–on the outside.

By: travis bruce

travis bruce — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 01:21:56 +0000

God is the source of all truth. If you want to know if something is true, study it out in your own mind, come to a conclusion and ask God in the name of Christ and he will manifest it to you by the power of the Holy Ghost. It is that simple. And then satan will come along and try and rip that truth right out of your heart. You do not need a blog or the opinion of others. Ask God and be at peace.

By: adam

adam — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 14:05:35 +0000

I was a friend of Cleon’s and sat in his living room many times on my mission and heard him tell his atonement theory. I just thought I would add in some details to help answer some of the questions about its origins. Cleon always told me that this atonement idea was not his. In fact he attributes it all to Elder Woodsoe of the 12. Cleon served his mission under Elder Woodsoe and it was through his that he got this atonement idea. After his mission Elder Woodsoe requested that Cleon write his atonement idea and publish it under his name because he felt that if he (Elder Woodsoe) published it that it would cause problems within the quorum of the 12 over doctrinal belief. So Cleon wrote and published it under his own name, with the support of Elder Woodsoe, who Cleon claimed to have discovered it through Brigham Young when he was writing the discourses of Brigham Young.
That is the story of how Cleon came up with his idea of atonement. This is not a second hand story, but rather from a first hand experience. I believe that he alludes to this story in his books “Days of the Living Christ where he reprints his atonement ideas.”

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 21:14:21 +0000

Geoff J wrote, “I should add that Ballard did not call the article “apostasia” like we eventually did, in fact, he didn’t even say it was false per se, he just warned the missionaries that it did not represent the doctrine of the church.”

That’s a far cry from apostasy! In fact, the *ONLY* things that are church doctrine are the standard works and official statements by the First Presidency. Even most of the stuff that gets taught at General Conference is not official Church doctrine. That’s not to say that it’s not inspired, or that we’re not under an obligation to consider it the word of God. But official Church doctrine gets presented to the Church as such and there is an official motion to accept it as such.

So everyone is welcome to speculate to their heart’s content and publish it, as long as they mark it clearly as speculation, like Alma did while talking to Corianton about the first resurrection. And if the First Presidency tells you you’re wrong, then you’ve got a little more information than you did before.

By: Rusty

Rusty — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 04:47:11 +0000

Curtis, Click here for the talk. Click here for a similar talk.

By: Curtis Harper

Curtis Harper — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 10:25:20 +0000

Where do I find a copy of this talk by cleon on the atonement?

By: Daylan Darby

Daylan Darby — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 05:47:07 +0000

Why couldn’t the “I am” be an electron? It’s ‘job’ is to orbit the nucleus, but it does so randomly, unmeasurable.

By: Eric Russell

Eric Russell — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 08:45:19 +0000

ARJ, I think it has to do with the potential danger of the idea. There’s a lot of speculative theology out there, like the location of the ten tribes and whatnot. Inasmuch as these things do not present a danger to the general membership, most publishers of speculative theology aren’t going to come under church chastisement.

I think the England incident had more to do with BRM’s ego than anything else.

I should add that Ballard did not call the article “apostasia” like we eventually did, in fact, he didn’t even say it was false per se, he just warned the missionaries that it did not represent the doctrine of the church. Apologies if I misrepresented that, which I think I probably did.

By: Geoff J

Geoff J — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 08:30:58 +0000

It does seem that ol’ Cleon is a bit fast and loose — even reckless — with some of his proof-texting and conclusions. That said, I’m not willing to dismiss it all yet until I put more thought into it. Section 88 is filled with theological nuggets that we don’t know much about yet. As a result most of us just ignore it. At least Skousen is trying to form a model around some of that stuff.

As for the idea of independent intelligence particles, I sort of like some of his idea. I like the idea that “I” am which comes as a result of somehow being more than the sum of my parts (intelligence particles). I think it makes some sense. It also makes sense that like a snowball of intelligence “I” can become a completely new and more holy me by gathering more intelligence into the community of intelligence that is me.

Of course I am conflating the concept of intelligence particles (whatever that really means) and intelligence, as in knowledge, wisdom, truth light, etc. Obviously I don’t get it. But I like the implications so based on my current understanding of the subject.

If this basic model is workable it allows a model of eternity that I could start to understand. It also makes the idea of the “destruction of the soul” make a lot more sense. That might really mean the de-construction of the soul, or separating of (some or all) the particles that once made the whole of a person. That would be outer darkness indeed for that former soul; a recycling of sorts.

(Sorry – I’m thinking out loud here. Maybe I’ll post on this tonight)

By: a random John

a random John — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 07:01:09 +0000

What I don’t understand is how on one hand we have Eric saying that a member of the 12 has publically condemned this stuff and on the other we have Brother Skousen whose books continue to be popular and whose continues to publicize these very ideas. If this is “apostasia pura” como Eric falou, then would church leaders have come down on him like BRM came down on Eugene England?

Of course I would guess that we might never know what goes on behind the scenes. That said, there seem to be contradictory ideas being given to the membership.