LDS

[Pixel42]

The reasons people leave are Legion, but among them are the usual pride, jealousy, envy, difficulty in keeping the Commandments, disagreements with Church policy, feel uncomfortable, really most any reason people leave any religion.

This seems to be the standard LDS line as I've heard it from other Mormons. I beg leave to doubt it. Most religions are not based on holy books which consist almost entirely of verifiably false claims.

Skyrider would certainly class the following site as anti-Mormon, so click on the link at your peril.

Why We Left - personal accounts of leaving Mormonism

 

[StankApe]

Take all the other stuff a Christian believes, about Jesus, his mother, God, history, the making of the universe, the voice in the whirlwind and the ark, sin, and....worrying about the oddities of Mormonism is like arguing about the color of Mickey Mouse's buttons.

Ahhhh, but there's a couple thousand years of that stuff . (not that I'm saying that makes it morebelievable. But it DOES mean that there are 2000 years for it to become more of a fixture in everyday society, people's lives...etc) Whereas most new Mormons are converts. and converts who I suspect were previously some other religion first. I just don't understand how someone could read the BOM and go "yeah sure, this makes total sense"

 

[Craig4]

Ahhhh, but there's a couple thousand years of that stuff . (not that I'm saying that makes it morebelievable. But it DOES mean that there are 2000 years for it to become more of a fixture in everyday society, people's lives...etc) Whereas most new Mormons are converts. and converts who I suspect were previously some other religion first. I just don't understand how someone could read the BOM and go "yeah sure, this makes total sense"

The young age of the Mormon belief certainly makes disproving the claims more accessible. With modern technology it takes about the time of an afternoon to to credibly dismiss Mormonism as a fraud. While just as made up, Judaism, Christianity and Islam started in a considerably more distant past so disproving them takes more effort. You've got to spend some quality time with Tacticus, Josephus, Celsus, and Livy to find the holes in Christianity. Islam and Judaism are even harder because you're getting into even less accessible history.

 

[Janadele]

When one has the light of Christ and the Holy Spirit testifying of the truth, and some remembrance of pre-mortal existence, it is perfectly understandable

Whereas most new Mormons are converts. and converts who I suspect were previously some other religion first. I just don't understand how someone could read the BOM and go "yeah sure, this makes total sense"

 

[dafydd]

When one has the light of Christ and the Holy Spirit testifying of the truth, and some remembrance of pre-mortal existence, it is perfectly understandable

How can you have the light of a dead guy? Please provide evidence of the existence of this pre-mortal existence. Sounds like tosh to me.

 

[Janadele]

Interesting that your supposed special gift and professed "LDS faith" led you to marry a Non Christian.

....
While I owe no explanation to Janadele, my Stake Patriarch told me that I have a special gift from Heavenly Father, an "analytical mind."...

 

[Agatha]

You've been asked several times to follow forum etiquette and place your reply after the quote, Janadele, and you've been given a further reason to do so in that there are some members here who use text-to-speech screen readers because they are blind. If you won't change this habit to be polite, will you change it for the sake of those with disabilities?

 

[Janadele]

Thank you for your courteous request Agatha
I fail to understand what difference where the words are placed, could possibly make... if presumably the person concerned is able to read (or hear) both the words at the top and the words at the bottom, of a page. There is usually no flow of consecutive thoughts or any sense of continuity to be found on the forum.

 

[pakeha]

Interesting that your supposed special gift and professed "LDS faith" led you to marry a Non Christian.

Cat fight!
Do tell, Janadele, was that cheap shot inspired by the 'light of Christ'?

Now about that 'translation' of Joseph Smith of the papyrus scrolls-
How could Greek be mistaken for Chaldean?

 

[Pup]

Come now, you really don't know the answer to that? I think you do.

^
That's an interesting tactic you've employed to try to deflect the point of my questions.

I read it to mean that since she'd already posted several times in this thread that she agrees the verifiable facts in the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price are false (i.e. no horses in the early Americas) and had posted a link to a church-sponsored website which confirms there were no horses in pre-Spanish America after the ice age, that it was old ground and the poor souls addicted to this thread would already know her view. It's true that those not yet sucked in to the full breadth and depth of the thread might not be aware of that.

Obviously some people leave the church for that reason but apparently, as the church's own website shows, it's not necessary for everyone who acknowledges the evidence to leave the church.

Verifiable things, unfalsifiable faith, god of the gaps, NOMA. It's nothing really new that hasn't already been covered over and over. I'm not an advocate of NOMA myself, but lots of folks are.

But I don't mean to speak for her. When she gets up (it's early morning here in the colonies), she can correct me and answer differently if I got it wrong.

 

[zooterkin]

I fail to understand what difference where the words are placed, could possibly make... if presumably the person concerned is able to read (or hear) both the words at the top and the words at the bottom, of a page. There is usually no flow of consecutive thoughts or any sense of continuity to be found on the forum.

You what? You don't think it matters what order the words are in? Yoda is it you are?

When reading an individual post of course it makes a difference whether you read the quoted text that's being replied to before or after the reply. It makes even more sense if you're having it read to you, since you can't glance down, when it becomes apparent that the text is replying to something you haven't seen, and see the quoted block below.

 

[Pup]

This seems to be the standard LDS line as I've heard it from other Mormons. I beg leave to doubt it. Most religions are not based on holy books which consist almost entirely of verifiably false claims.

Can't say I'm very familiar with the holy books of any religions other than the LDS church and the many religions who follow the King James Bible, but the Bible is almost entirely made up of verifiably false claims, starting right at the beginning and going on up through people rising out of their graves and walking around ancient Rome. The natural sciences show that the creation story and the flood are verifiably false, and common sense plus the histories of ancient Rome and Egypt show the rest.

As others have noted, the widespread exposure to Biblical stories in Christian societies inoculates people to the inaccuracies. It may be an example of typical human behavior, but is it really any excuse? False things should be recognized as false, no matter how many times they're repeated as true.

 

[dafydd]

Thank you for your courteous request Agatha
I fail to understand what difference where the words are placed, could possibly make... if presumably the person concerned is able to read (or hear) both the words at the top and the words at the bottom, of a page. There is usually no flow of consecutive thoughts or any sense of continuity to be found on the forum.

Mormon logic?

 

[SezMe]

I fail to understand what difference where the words are placed, could possibly make...

Members
Or
Readers
Many
Attest
Negatively

You figure it out. Maybe sticking your face in a hat will help.

 

[Agatha]

Thank you for your courteous request Agatha
I fail to understand what difference where the words are placed, could possibly make... if presumably the person concerned is able to read (or hear) both the words at the top and the words at the bottom, of a page. There is usually no flow of consecutive thoughts or any sense of continuity to be found on the forum.

I'm sorry that you are finding it difficult to understand, but put yourself into the position of a blind person. If your words come before the quote, especially on a fast moving thread where you might be replying to something that was said as much as a page or more ago, the person hears your words devoid of all context. Then they get the context afterwards, and then have to re-hear your words to understand the point.

We have people here with a myriad of different abilities and disabilities - people who are deaf, or blind, or who use a gadget similar to Stephen Hawking's computer because they are completely paralysed. Part of the way we (as the forum users) ensure equality of access is to encourage everyone to format their posts in the same way, which is quote first (in the quote tags) and reply afterwards. Other forums do things differently but the etiquette here is as I and several others have requested you use.

If you feel it makes no difference then please do change to follow the forum etiquette.

 

[Craig4]

When one has the light of Christ and the Holy Spirit testifying of the truth, and some remembrance of pre-mortal existence, it is perfectly understandable

Odd that Christ and the Holy Spirit seem to have totally ********** up on the history of the Americas don't you think?

 

[tsig]

Odd that Christ and the Holy Spirit seem to have totally ********** up on the history of the Americas don't you think?

It's not their fault, the prophet got it wrong according to Mormon apologetics.

Of course, claiming that your prophet mistranslated the book bad enough that he got the basics wrong should make them wonder about his accuracy as a prophet but that never seems to faze them.

 

[dafydd]

It's not their fault, the prophet got it wrong according to Mormon apologetics.

Of course, claiming that your prophet mistranslated the book bad enough that he got the basics wrong should make them wonder about his accuracy as a prophet but that never seems to faze them.

Dictated, not translated. God should brush up on his history. 0/10, see me after class.

 

[Janadele]

Agatha, As I previously posted some time back. If one is checking through past posts of a particular poster, having those posts below the quote makes this a laborious task, whereas if at the top then each individual post does not have to be opened. So much easier, and a lot less time consuming.

 

[Pup]

I'll warn you, be careful venturing over to this site because you'll see Purple's entire account that was published in the Chenango Union newspaper on May 2, 1877. Joseph Jr's own testimony basically admits to all the seer-type activities, by giving a background of his life.

The above is a perfect example of what I said earlier, about going to primary sources to get away from the pro-Mormon/anti-Mormon dichotomy.

There are layers and layers of sources here, in between us and what really happened in 1826. Skyrider44 started with a pro-Mormon article in FAIR about the 1826 trial, which uses an 1877 article in the Chenango Union as evidence. The Chenango Union account, however, was written by an anti-Mormon. (The author explains toward the end that he's writing it to show "the spirit of delusion that characterized those who originated that prince of humbugs, Mormonism.")

So is the Chenango Union article pro- or anti-? Both sides have claimed it.

Personally, I think it's neither; it just is what it is. Though the author's recollection does have the ring of truth. It's the old, old story of the crazy parent wasting his kids' inheritance on a weird obsession, the kids trying to stop it, and the court probably--it's not made clear--shrugging and saying your father may be nuts, but there's really no law against him spending his money on crazy stuff.

It's well worth reading. Everyone seems to be fooling everyone, except Stowell's sons who watched in frustration, and the poor hired hand Thompson, looking on in amazement.

Stowell and Smith were a match made in heaven, the old dude obsessed with looking for buried treasure, and the new-age boy (as we'd call him today) obsessed with being a seer who could help him find it. They both seemed to be feeding on each other's craziness, but because Stowell had money and was hiring diggers, the money flowed toward Smith.