Right, it is a recipe for disaster to give good-hearted, well-meaning people the illusion that they have and should use qith confidence the-emporers-new-qualifications to provide advice and direction to people on nearly any given topic.

I know Steven pretty well, and have found him to be a very good dude. I don't see him as the problem here, but rather that he is a perfect example of how faith can lead very good people to very bad conclusions.

Articulate and thoughtful as always

I forgot about that...but I am pretty sure you are right.

We should all be so lucky

To be fair I am not sure I’m aware that any culture is free of passive aggressiveness and religions in particular are prone to it for sure: That said, it does seem Mormonism does seem especially adept at it.

7) The bottom line problem here is clearly at least one but probably multiple prophets of God lied and/or presented personal opinions as definative truth and/or divine prophetic reveltation... and if you pull on that tread there is no way to know if the same thing is or is not happening today.