the mormon/lds topic

[docKnubis]

well i am lds or mormon so ha ha what i want to know is why people dont believe or what they dont belive about mormonism

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by docthory well i am lds or mormon so ha ha what i want to know is why people dont believe or what they dont belive about mormonism Are you sure you want to know? Firstly, the Mormon Holy Book is constantly under revision... to make it more politically correct, or to make it more marketable... but it seems that even the Mormon Elders who are supposed to maintain these "sacred things" don't even regard this Revelation as particularly serious... if they honestly thought it was from God, they would not so lightly tamper with it, no? Then we have the pure narrative history of Mormonism. Do not the early Mormon Leaders and the Early Mormon Stories read of opportunism? Then we have a total absence of Divine Providence. Catholics have Saints and verified Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin. Mormonism, just like anyt other of many competing sects of Protestantism, has only a book. One can hardly credit a Religion that has not produced a Saint. The Vine of Christ is proven by its Fruit. Claiming that one once had a Golden Book that vanished into thin air before any impartial observer could credit it... well it is all too silly to take seriously. We have many Mormon 'Believers' but we can attribute this to social pressures. In Utah one cannot achieve any executive career position unless one is a Mormon. In other Western States, being a Mormon is something like being a Free Mason somewhere else. It is an insider's means of getting around the requirement of being talented or having any real merit in one's chosen profession. One becomes a Mormon and then seeks recruitment in a Company run by Mormons. Then we know that the Mormons are self-consciously aware of their own vulnerabilities. Notice that Mormon Missionaries are sent out two by two. One person watches another. Where one person may come to doubt shakey doctrine, two people must agree on what objectively exists between them. and then, each person must be worried that his friend could report him for any divergence from acceptable thinking. Then there is the History of America. The Book of Mormon posits the existence of an American Church. In the midst of the 19th Century such a tall tale could be told without raising too many eyebrows. But now we know a great deal about the Neolithic Civilizations that had populated the America's prior to the advent and inroads of Catholic-Western Civilization. With this Archeological and Historical Data are our fingertips, we are struck with the bizaar fictions of the Book of Mormon. It seems like a book that could have easily been invented by a frustrated salesman turned writer, turned self-aclaimed Religious Prophet. But where it is held up to Reality and any physical or cultural evidence, it comes up blank. Indeed, scholarship only resents that it had to waste its time going through the functionary steps required to dismiss such an obvious fabrication. Indeed, the Book of Mormon does all Religion a great disservice. Once the Book of Mormon is seen to be such a blatant imposture, what stops the Skeptics from deducing that all Religious Scripture is equally from the same kind of fraudulent schemers and opportunists. And the success Mormonism has had is then so much more the source of embarrassment to the other Religions of the World. When it becomes so obvious that Truth does not matter to those of Religious disposition, then the Atheists might infer with no small degree of reason that Religious People simply don't care whether anything is true or not. So it must become a matter of Principle for anybody who would stand up for True Religion to thoroughtly condemn Mormonism, its sources, its references, and its adherents. It must be certain to everybody that Falseness is of and for the Devil.

[Neruo]

There is a reason mormon sounds like moron. Really, the dude that invented it was making a joke. Cut the crap

[Tsen]

Firstly, the Mormon Holy Book is constantly under revision... to make it more politically correct, or to make it more marketable... but it seems that even the Mormon Elders who are supposed to maintain these "sacred things" don't even regard this Revelation as particularly serious... if they honestly thought it was from God, they would not so lightly tamper with it, no? [/b] Alright, I'm an ex-Mo, so I know what I'm talking about here. For all the faults the church has, it doesn't rewrite it's scriptures. The Book of Mormon hasn't been revised at all. The only changes made to it over it's 100+ year life have been to add a new title page and index and cross-reference the entire book with the Bible. None of the actual text was changed when either of those happened, it was only indexed for easier referencing. The Doctrine and Covenants, usually found in the same volume as the Book of Mormon, has been added to, but again, hasn't been changed. But the Doctrine and Covenants is a seperate book--consisting of modern records and reccommendations by church leadership. The Pearl of Great Price is also usually printed with the Book of Mormon, but it also hasn't been altered. Apart from those, usually there's a small section in the back of the book reserved for the Joseph Smith History book, Joseph's journal through the creation of the church. But the Book of Mormon itself has never been altered. Ever. More than what the Catholics can claim with the Bible. Don't get me wrong, I can find a lot of fault with the Mormon/LDS church, but no more fault than I find with other religions. It's actually offensive to find out how much misinformation is circulating about the church to this day. Really, the dude that invented it was making a joke. [/b] Oh really? I'd think not, considering he persisted in this 'joke', never once cracking a smile, as he was persecuted and chased through several states, imprisioned multiple times on trumped-up charges or none at all, and eventually shot by an angry mob, along with his brother. Ha-ha. Great joke.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by Tsen Firstly, the Mormon Holy Book is constantly under revision... to make it more politically correct, or to make it more marketable... but it seems that even the Mormon Elders who are supposed to maintain these "sacred things" don't even regard this Revelation as particularly serious... if they honestly thought it was from God, they would not so lightly tamper with it, no? Alright, I'm an ex-Mo, so I know what I'm talking about here. For all the faults the church has, it doesn't rewrite it's scriptures. The Book of Mormon hasn't been revised at all. The only changes made to it over it's 100+ year life have been to add a new title page and index and cross-reference the entire book with the Bible. ... [/b] Well, no, I didn't say that anybody had admitted to any revisions, or that the revisions were posted. What I should have said was that the changes were done clandestinely and surreptitiously... 'on the sly'. You see, their underlying assumption is that nobody reads with much care. Rather than making a huge case out of adjusting Doctrine and Scripture to keep up with their projected sales curve, they just went ahead, in the middle of the night under cover of darkness and did it. You would have to take an old edition read it side by side with a new addition you will find adjunctions and deletions as you go. But of course I will back down if you can definitely assert that you are to a degree that familiar with the old and the new editions, comparing each word for word as they hit the bookshelves from the printers. No? I didn't think so. As for anybody in the Institution blowing the whistle... Well, didn't I hear of one LDS 'Scholar' being run out of Utah for just that. He pointed out the zero quantity of any archeological, anthropological, historical evidence for an Aboriginal LDS American Community (and the Book of Mormon posits a complete Old World Style Civilization that had been in the New World for when Christ, Apparently, had taken His act on the road -- not satisfied in being Crucified just once, decided to come to Ancient Mexico and, despite Free Will, suppose he could do it all once more 'play by play' and it would all come out the same. But this incisive LDS Scholar (what a waste of integrity there) concluded that it must have been a giant metaphor, and that nobody could be serious that any such Civilization could have possibly existed, not without leaving some trace. We were able well enough to trace Mayan, Incan, Anasazi, Hohokam and other influences back across the Millenia, and so it could fairly be certain that if it had existed, we could have inferred it with the same tools that allowed us to see all of the others. For his discernment, he was run out of the Church. Anyway, with such examples supporting the strictest assertions of Authority joined with Severity, no one who wishes to remain a Mormon is going to submit any Letters to the Editor in the Salt Lake City Gazette complaining the the Book of Labotocus has been clipped taking out the dancing girls or the Book of Stumpuel appended with a woman's rights section. Those who see it happening, nod their heads and are simply grateful that they are members in high standing with their own successful version of Free Masonry. Their Worldly careers are secure. For what more could they ask. Well, they will worry about having sold their souls to the devil after they are dead.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by Tsen * But the Book of Mormon itself has never been altered. *Ever. * More than what the Catholics can claim with the Bible. You know, changing a Scripture is not always necessarily bad. Yes, it is bad if new 'details' are invented out of the blue, and if all is done secretly and without posting the changes without the slightest open review. But what if the Tradition of a Religion's Saints point out that some entire sections of Scripture are spurious, especially where they contradict and undermine sections of the Scripture which are central to the Spiritual Success of a Tradition of Supernatural Saints. Well, then it would seem necessary to edit Scripture. I would not hesitate a moment in tossing out every book of Paul -- all 14 of them, and perhaps even the Gospel of John as it was clearly written in the 2nd Century, by a Greek, and a Paulist -- intended to retroactively superimpose Pauline Doctrine into the Life and Ministry of Christ. so the Catholics should have changed the Bible. But, no, the Bible has not been changed. yes, those who translated the Bible use a selection of words which would tend to reinforce their separate doctriness -- the Protestants translating the word 'cousin' into 'brother' in order to support their contention that Mary was NOT a Virgin, and using the words 'Elder' instead of Priest to support the contention that early Church was indeed no monolithic Spiritual Entity, but only intended to be just a scattering of independent congregations on each street corner, just like in the Protestant World. But, no, there have been no overt deletions, no overt insertions. And then each individual Translation is tracked and recorded. None of this is done surreptiously. The controversies are all quite open and the debate, of course, is endless. We see no Catholic Scholars driven off, for, afterall, it was Catholicism first that granted Universities the institution of tenuring their Professors.

[Tsen]

Note that I never said that the Mormon church was true, only that you had some misconceptions about their scripture. Another anomaly with LDS doctrine was that horses were in the Americas by ~600 BC. No evidence has been found of horses dating to that era. However, I maintain that their scripture has not been changed. You're right--I haven't looked at every single verse of ancient and modern Books of Mormon. That isn't to say that I haven't checked at all. When I used to study with my friends, one would bring their grandma's Book of Mormon to study. We'd read verses aloud for a little over an hour, twice a week for more than a year. Not ONCE was there a verse thad didn't read the same in her Book of Mormon as in ours. That book was printed more than one hundred years ago.

[wombing]

I would not hesitate a moment in tossing out every book of Paul -- all 14 of them, and perhaps even the Gospel of John as it was clearly written in the 2nd Century, by a Greek, and a Paulist -- intended to retroactively superimpose Pauline Doctrine into the Life and Ministry of Christ.[/b] i am all for forgetting the strangely widespread popularity of paul, and throwing them on the side of the road. but i certainly have seen no evidence to suggest that john was 'clearly written in the 2nd century", and by 'a paulist'. by a greek? that seems likely. but i would like to hear your reasoning behind the other two assertions...the gospel of john was seemingly as popular with various gnostic groups as with the pauline, even though the two were obviously opposed to one another.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by Tsen ...When I used to study with my friends, one would bring their grandma's Book of Mormon to study. *We'd read verses aloud for a little over an hour, twice a week for more than a year. *Not ONCE was there a verse thad didn't read the same in her Book of Mormon as in ours. *That book was printed more than one hundred years ago. perhaps it is only a recent practice. I read of a criticism of the LDS for this practice of sneeking in changes. My impression is that it has been happening for quite some time. Perhaps, next, they will change the references regarding all of those horses that only ride into the ridiculous. The next edition will have them changed into LLamas so that the fraud may continue to hold some traction.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by Asher I would not hesitate a moment in tossing out every book of Paul -- all 14 of them, and perhaps even the Gospel of John as it was clearly written in the 2nd Century, by a Greek, and a Paulist -- intended to retroactively superimpose Pauline Doctrine into the Life and Ministry of Christ. i am all for forgetting the strangely widespread popularity of paul, and throwing them on the side of the road. but i certainly have seen no evidence to suggest that john was 'clearly written in the 2nd century", and by 'a paulist'. by a greek? that seems likely. but i would like to hear your reasoning behind the other two assertions...the gospel of john was seemingly as popular with various gnostic groups as with the pauline, even though the two were obviously opposed to one another.[/b] Well, it runs somewhat counter to my own Argument, that the Gospel of John was written by a Paulist, but I place the Gospel of John in the 2nd Century because several of the Doctrines of Paul have been mitigated somewhat. Now, it would be my intuition that the Congregations created immediately under Paul's direction, with their instructions to entirely disregard the "Apostles of Righteousness", that is, those Apostles who had trained directly under Jesus, whom the Churches of Paul were explicitly instructed to distrust (indeed, it was the riots between the Messianics and the Paulists that cause Nero to step in and kill them all, as so many troublemakers... though I should suspect that the Paulists, with their emphesis on getting away with any Sin, would have been the ones to directly start any violence, just as the Protestants would later). So I imagine that the Pauline Congregations would have held quite steady for the first Generation -- 20 or 30 years. And the Messianics would have controlled Jerusalem and be satisfied with that territory. The Book of Revelations also tell us that Paul was run out of Asia Minor, and so the Ionian Territories would have been Messianic. But these Messianic Christians would have been scattered after 71 A.D. by the destruction of Jerusalem and the Diaspora. These Messianic Christians would have forced themselves into the once solidly Paulist Congregations, but those who still remembered Paul as their Leader would have put up a solid fight. The Messianics who had remembered Christ would not have tolerated anything of Paul. so in the Compromises found in the Gospel of John I infer that nobody involved in the writing had any direct loyalties to either Jesus or Paul. It would have satisfied nobody. Only the 2nd Century could have produced such a political compromise of what should have been regarded as Absolute Truths. Now, as for it being written by a Greek. My god, just look at it. The friggin "Logos"!? That is a word out of Platonic Philosophy. Then we have the Trinitarian Doctrines. What Hebrew in their right mind would have multiplied God. Only a Greek could have turned Jesus the Messianic Avatar into a Second God, as it is so completely offensive to Monotheistic Sensibilities... but how would a Greek Polytheist know anything about that? Indeed, they made Paul a God through the contrivance of the Holy Spirit. In fact I think it is a serious problem that the Protestants so insist that the Bible is the Word of God. That comes terribly close to saying that the Bible IS God, and that is clearly Idolatry. I suppose even the Muslims with their Koran are not guilty of that -- supposing Mohamed's Words to be the veritable Voice of God. Also, the Greek is too fluent. We have writing from John, in the letters. The man was hardly literate in Aramaic, and Greek sucked. The Greek in the Gospel of John is said to be some of them best. Of course, the Greek Language, like English today, was not confined to it homeland, but was something of a Cosmopolitan Language, but in this regards we need to consider that Christ did not assemble a group of Scholars. These men were glorified 'roadies'. He had just started out on His Messianic Quest and had not thought to put together a Political or Theological Staff. What we know of as the Apostles were just the grunt labor there for Jesus's direct support. Somebody had to set up the tents and put out the folding Chairs. After Christ was Murdered, of course, these Roadies exaggerated their connection in order to promote their own prominance. Peter used it to extort money, and was murdering people in a shake down operation. 'Peter', the name, has not the dignity it has today, but meant something like "Rockey" -- a thugs name -- a gangster. What happens when you let the Manual Labor take charge. Anyway, the Apostle John, though he meant well, and defended the Messianic Church from Paulism, and was instrumental into driving the Paulists out of Asia Minor (Ionian Greece) still I would not expect that his Greek would have been the best of his day, particularly since his letters were stumbled and scattered messes, and his Book of Revelation is still a muddle of confusion.

[Tsen]

The "when I used to" referred to the time period from when I turned twelve (about six years ago) to about six months ago when I first considered leaving the church. I'm quite certain that it hasn't been changed, especially not within the last 100 years. You can't trust all that you read in strictly anti-LDS books or stories, since it's likely that some, if not all, is trumped up or outright false. Quite sad really, considering that there's plenty of existing flaws to pick on, as there are in any religion. A more straight forward problem with the church is that they blatantly discriminated against blacks until social pressure in the 70's forced them to reconsider their position. Up until then black men couldn't hold the priesthood like other members could, regardless of how devoted they might be. The change was made under the banner of a "revelation from God" concerning the black members, to hide that it was really just a sign of a racist church finally succumbing to social pressure. The declaration announcing the change can be found, along with the date of its release, in any Mormon's scriptures, probably next to the Doctrine and Covenants in the Book of Mormon.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by Tsen The "when I used to" referred to the time period from when I turned twelve (about six years ago) to about six months ago when I first considered leaving the church. I'm quite certain that it hasn't been changed, especially not within the last 100 years. You can't trust all that you read in strictly anti-LDS books or stories, since it's likely that some, if not all, is trumped up or outright false. Quite sad really, considering that there's plenty of existing flaws to pick on, as there are in any religion. A more straight forward problem with the church is that they blatantly discriminated against blacks until social pressure in the 70's forced them to reconsider their position. Up until then black men couldn't hold the priesthood like other members could, regardless of how devoted they might be. The change was made under the banner of a "revelation from God" concerning the black members, to hide that it was really just a sign of a racist church finally succumbing to social pressure. The declaration announcing the change can be found, along with the date of its release, in any Mormon's scriptures, probably next to the Doctrine and Covenants in the Book of Mormon. This does point up one of the shortfalls of Secret Societies or Exclusive Societies, that they can have too large a membership. Remembering that their primary attraction is that such a Society can automatically make one's career, it must be kept in mind that there are only so many good job and career slots. So it is that Mormonism has been spreading out throughout the Southwest -- to areas not so completely Mormon so that new companies can be start up, where Good Mormons will get the preferred positions, and the local people can do the slave work and be exploited. It is famous how unjust and cruel Mormon employers are to their non-Mormon staffs. But they are probably no worse than the Free Masons. But the Free Masons have some political and social Cover since they are and remain Secret, though it should be obvious what is happening, since they use those little bumper icons to protect themselves from speeding tickets (Cops are ALWAYS welcomed into the Masons and just for that purpose, so Masons can evade arrest). So it hardly occurs to Employees to complain of Mason Employers, though I would suppose many companies are entirely in the hands of Masons, but the Mormons do not keep it a secret, and their Management style is severe enough to draw attention.

[kage]

Originally posted by Leo Volont perhaps it is only a recent practice. I read of a criticism of the LDS for this practice of sneeking in changes. My impression is that it has been happening for quite some time. Perhaps, next, they will change the references regarding all of those horses that only ride into the ridiculous. The next edition will have them changed into LLamas so that the fraud may continue to hold some traction. (like Tsen, i'm also an ex-mo, so i also know what i'm talking about.) leo, tsen is right about the book of mormon never having been changed. perhaps what you're thinking of is the temple ceremonies, which have been changed multiple times.

[FluBB]

well me being a mormon living in salt lake city, utah.... well i can say that the book of mormon hasnt been changed that is for sure. and there is no way you could get a position soley for the fact that you are mormon. its not like you have to put your religion on a resume or something. we dont go around proclaming "i am a mormon so i deserve more right and priveleges then you!" and as for the horses, we really cant be sure about any of that. what is funny is that some people dont even consider us being christians... when we believe in christ, honestly ridiculous. and as for LDS missionaries going in pairs its for their own physical and spiritual safety. I agree that is is a way for them to keep in shape or in tune with the spirit, although many of them dont need it, its just a precautionary. FluBB you will probably rip apart everything i just said but.. i guess if you have to think your right everytime go ahead.

[kage]

Originally posted by FluBB well me being a mormon living in salt lake city, utah.... well i can say that the book of mormon hasnt been changed that is for sure. and there is no way you could get a position soley for the fact that you are mormon. its not like you have to put your religion on a resume or something. we dont go around proclaming "i am a mormon so i deserve more right and priveleges then you!" and as for the horses, we really cant be sure about any of that. what is funny is that some people dont even consider us being christians... when we believe in christ, honestly ridiculous. and as for LDS missionaries going in pairs its for their own physical and spiritual safety. I agree that is is a way for them to keep in shape or in tune with the spirit, although many of them dont need it, its just a precautionary. FluBB you will probably rip apart everything i just said but.. i guess if you have to think your right everytime go ahead. no, you don't have to put your religion on your resume or anything, but it's usually pretty easy to tell who is mormon and who is not in utah. and employers can't BLATANTLY discriminate against non-mormons, but many many people automatically assume that any mormon is more honest, trustworthy, kind, etc., than any non-mo. and this is simply not true. mormons can be just as corrupt (and sometimes more so) than non-mormons. i agree that you probably can't get a job SOLEY for the fact that you're mormon, but it might make getting a job a hell of a lot easier. as for horses, yes, i think we _are_ pretty sure that there were no horses in north or south america until the spaniards brought them. and as for the christian/not christian debate. i have discussed this many times with my wife. i am an ex-mo and she was never mormon. she started out with the position that, technically and academically speaking, mormons are not christian. i said they are. what we've come to agree on is that, by a very loose definition of christianity, they are christian. however, THEY ARE BY NO MEANS ORTHODOX! there are many points of disagreement between mormon theology and traditional christian theology. the first that comes to mind is the Trinity. mormons view God, JC, and the Holy Ghost as being one in purpose, but three in being. traditional christian theology states that they are one in BEING. they are not separate entities at all; God, JC, and the HG are actually one person/thing/whatever. i'm sure there's more points of disagreement, but it's still morning, and that's all i can think of right now.

[docKnubis]

dealing with horses http://www.2s2.com/chapmanresearch/user/do...nts/horses.html and i dont find it just for someone to judge a book of any kind if they havent read it

[WolfBlade]

I personally think that Mormons have problems with the general membership in Utah. If you take the typical Mormon in Salt Lake City, and compare them to the typical Mormon in almost any other place, especially in places like South America and Africa, you would find that the Mormon in Utah is a lot less "Mormon" than the Mormon elsewhere. This could be a very big problem, and will likely get worse. And as for the horses, sure, we haven't found any evidence of them being there any time near 600 B.C., yet. Who knows, we may never, in which case, ouch for the Mormons. And then, in the case of the Trinity, really now, traditional Christianity is not what the Catholics purported it to be. The Trinity was not decided on until somewhere between 800 and 1000 A.D., not around the time the Christ was supposedly on the Earth. How many true Christians, who read the bible, would read Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 where Jesus cries out "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" and then in Luke 23: 34 "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." and then talk about the Godhead as one single being? (Leo: notice I did not use the disputed book of John...) I certainly cannot think of a reason why. I personally hear about the "Mormons" who discriminate, whether blatantly or not, against their non-Mormon employees, I think that they should be disfellowshipped or even excommunicated, because they sure as hell do not represent the general LDS population.

[mbarlowm]

You know, I always heard the horse criticism thing and wondered. It seems like anything I ever read about it was either the criticism itsself or a Mormon apologism. So I just searched for "Origin of Horse" trying to find an unbiased article. Here: http://www.ponyclubvic.org.au/?Page=132 It says: "No one knows where horses originated. Fossils show that during the Ice Age horses lived on every continent except Australia. Great herds wandered throughout North and South America. Then for some unknown reason, horses disappeared from the Western Hemisphere."

[fieldwhy]

"well i am lds or mormon so ha ha what i want to know is why people dont believe or what they dont belive about mormonism" I too am an ex-morman. I was pretty into it also. No one in my family was as certain as me that The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints was the complete truth. I had read a lot of the arguments against it like the horse thing, and the book of mormon being revised. The thing is, I was never convinced by these things, as i am sure you are not. What started me questioning was the nature of sin as i understude it. I asked myself this: "if i were so and so (a murderer) would i have killed that person?" Than i thought of course i would. I would have had all the experiences that the person had, i would have the same genes that the person had, and all the thoughts etc... I would BE that person and there would be no other way for me to act. I had always been tought that if you sinned in ignorance, than it's not a sin. But who would sin knowing god and knowing full well that it is a sin and is bad for him/her. It just doesn't make sense. All so called "sin" is made in ignorance. Then i got into the part at the end of the book of mormon that i had read several times which talked about "reading these things and praying and waiting for a good feeling which meens that it is true." or something along those lines. It can't just be a good feeling though, it had to be a certain kind of good feeling, which is wierdly diferent from everyone... kinda vague... I descovered after i had started questioning sin that i could get the same "feeling" even right after i masterbated in the shower which is suposed to be a sin. I can get this feeling anytime i want. It's simply a strong sence of peace to be had by meditation and the like. Masterbation used to make me feel really guilty. I even went crying to the bishop because i felt so terrible. But it doesn't make any sense. If guys don't masterbate they just have wet dreams. Doesn't it make sense that it is a normal bodily function? Anyhow, that was rather long and probilby not very informanitive. I'm not great at expressing my ideas like some people here. Oh well, maybe someone found it helpfull or at least entertaining.

[Tsen]

Woo! Another ex-mo! I originally left because I couldn't understand what made the LDS religion better than everybody else--why a Catholic couldn't get into heaven just as easily, provided they'd been a good person. But no, you've gotta be baptised, married in the temple, confirmed and all that jazz, so only Mormons in heaven, and that just seemed a little corrupt to me.

[tommy]

wow. alot of ex mormons, huh? well i'm mormon. alot of what's been said so far refers to certain people doing certain things (like the employers disregarding the non-mormon employees). i have also read things in newspapers about bishops who were really sour and did some bad things. people made a big deal out of this and it started to make me question a little bit. but then i thought about it. these people are people, not perfect. (like we here so often: nobody's perfect) people not being perfect doesn't prove that the church isn't true. if that were right, then no church could be true. it's not really a valid argument to show how someone is imperfect in a group and generalizing and saying either the whole group is wrong or atleast what the whole group's beliefs are wrong. all that someone messing up is means that they don't understand, don't have the control, or don't believe in the teachings of a church (in this case, the LDS church, which brings me to my next point.) a few churches broke off in the early days of the LDS church. one is called the fundamentalists, with warren jeffs as a leader. (the papers make a big deal of it here in utah, i don't know if they do in other places.) i'm not sure if this is true, it's just what i heard. (i haven't looked into it far enough) but it's said that they had the doctrine and covenants, just like us. they took alot of sections out (a section is just a chapter) they also took out alot of verses too. they placed these in the appendix. then in 2000 (it may have been 2001) they took out the entire appendix. i don't know if this is exactly true, and maybe my facts are mixed up. but maybe earlier when some were arguing about the books being changed, they were talking about a different group of mormons. mormons is a general term including all groups that use the book of mormon. i think this topic is more devoted to the dominant LDS faith centrally located in utah. well thanks, just a few of my thoughts. i hope i didn't offend anyone too badly.

[taltho]

I used to be Mormon (plig) It's a little different than Mormon but not much. I agreee with Tsen, and many others so I wont repeat what they said. I do have one thing to add, that is Joseph Smith at age 14, supposedly/allegedly found the golden plates, thats where the book Of "moron's" (no offense just the way I see it) came from. Having said that I want to know if there where two semi truck loads of golden pates? That's what it would take to comprise the book of Mormon. Every language found in America, the Mayan/Olmec is the only one, so it would literally take two or more semi's to comprise that book. My theory he was a horny bastard who wanted to take other peoples wifes, and marry little girls.

[FluBB]

hahaah oh man.. that may be the best definition of joseph smith right there. he had wives when his first wife emma didnt even know about it. thats what actually got me questioning about the church, the whole mystery of the wives and joseph smith and really all about that crazy history stuff. personaly i wouldnt call a mormon a moron. you would have to call any religion moronic. its just as ridiculous as anything else except perhaps..... zen? daoism? something like that anyways. the fact is religion gives people comfort. it gives them something concrete that they know is right and can go back to it. thats why its common knowlege that people without a religion are unhappier then people with a religion. but i would rather live in a life of truth and be a little less happy then live a life of illusions. i dont really know about that true happiness stuff but i read it in a book that i trust so whatever lol. the main problems with most mormons i know is that they never actually research their own religion. they never dig deep into the doctrine. they just trust their parents until they go on a mission or whatever and have a psychosomatic rendering and there like "wow!!! its true". we all live in a world of illusions and we make many of them ourselves. ummm... i ramble a lot. yeah.. well just know that i am just talking about mormons in Utah, i really have no idea what mormons are like else where. most mormons out here have no idea what there following. and its surprizing how many people dont have a testimony of it... so sad.

[IZ]

Behold another Mormon. I live in Texas, and grew up with the faith. I dont really know how Utah Mormon are. But a majority does act different than somewhere where a minority would. And its been a constant battle in my heart to understand and to live with this world corruptions. There will always be doubt in any religion that you learn about, and trust me I've been to everysingle one, I've wasted a huge part of my life just learning of every single religion out there that I just lost my faith and passion for the knowledge in knowing all these beliefs. I soon found out and learned that there is a force in me that wont let me stray or in other words feels like being pownded back into my path. But thats just a little about me that you dont really care about. So in topic. There are many questions and strange facts that proves that LDS faith to be true. Like. When the Natives saw the colonist when arriving in the Americas, the natives treated Columbus like God because according to mormon belief when Jesus was in the americas, He told them of his second coming. After all the years and generations, the natives remember this and mistakenly confused Columbus as Jesus second coming. Which explains why the Natives did not treat the colonist as a unknown threat. Also a strange fact. Did you know that the Dead Sea near where Jesus used to preach is exactly accross the globe where The Salt Lake is, close to the LDS Temple and mormon capital. If you dont understand what I'm saying, If you take a baloon and you take a stick and pock it perfectly accross it coming out in the other end, on one side of the stick would be the Dead Sea and the other side the Salt Lake. Did the mormons who first traveled to the rocky mountains know that they were exactly accross the globe where Jesus used to be? I think it was just heavenly destany of a destination.

[Tsen]

And? That's got to be the most pointless and arbitrary proof of Mormonism I've ever seen.