Shutting down a couple of Mormons

[jonesthecurl]

I went to look at my copy of the Book of Mormon, but when I moved to the U.S. it didn't somehow make the cut as one of the thousand or so books I decided to bring, rather than the three thousand or so I left behind.
A pity because it was quite an old copy, which would have been interesting.
With regard to the people who saw the golden tablets, though:
How many of them were realted to Smith, and how many other families were privileged to see this important evidence of God's word?
How many of them were later excommunicated?

Of the 8 witnesses that claimed to have physically seen and touched the plates 3 of them were related to Joseph Smith.

The other 5 were all in the Whitmer family.

John Whitmer was excommunicated from the church and 2 others voluntarily left the church but none of them ever recanted their testimony of the authenticity of the plates.

So if the word of God, written on plates of gold, and physically witnessed, was not enough to convince these people that this church was the right one, why would anyone else join it?

You are also forgetting the three witnesses that had the evidence pointed out to them by an angel and who were later excommunicated.

I could ask the same thing of biblical figures like King Solomon or Judas.

King Solomon had direct contact with God, yet he turned away from Him to worship false idols.

Judas walked amongst Christ, witnessed all of his miracles, yet he betrayed Jesus in the end.

If King Solomon, Judas and many other biblical figures are capable of these things why would any one else be exempt from it?

Why do you care?

To be fair, whatever your beliefs, it's a valid question: if you encounter the raw Word of God, how can you disbelieve? or backslide?

[Gillipig]

I went to look at my copy of the Book of Mormon, but when I moved to the U.S. it didn't somehow make the cut as one of the thousand or so books I decided to bring, rather than the three thousand or so I left behind.
A pity because it was quite an old copy, which would have been interesting.
With regard to the people who saw the golden tablets, though:
How many of them were realted to Smith, and how many other families were privileged to see this important evidence of God's word?
How many of them were later excommunicated?

Of the 8 witnesses that claimed to have physically seen and touched the plates 3 of them were related to Joseph Smith.

The other 5 were all in the Whitmer family.

John Whitmer was excommunicated from the church and 2 others voluntarily left the church but none of them ever recanted their testimony of the authenticity of the plates.

So if the word of God, written on plates of gold, and physically witnessed, was not enough to convince these people that this church was the right one, why would anyone else join it?

You are also forgetting the three witnesses that had the evidence pointed out to them by an angel and who were later excommunicated.

I could ask the same thing of biblical figures like King Solomon or Judas.

King Solomon had direct contact with God, yet he turned away from Him to worship false idols.

Judas walked amongst Christ, witnessed all of his miracles, yet he betrayed Jesus in the end.

If King Solomon, Judas and many other biblical figures are capable of these things why would any one else be exempt from it?

Why do you care?

To be fair, whatever your beliefs, it's a valid question: if you encounter the raw Word of God, how can you disbelieve? or backslide?[/quote]

It's an incredibly boring subject because the only thing atheists and religious people of all sorts can agree on is that they can't convince each other of anything! Leave it that way, I won't try to convince "believers" of anything, in return I don't want Jehovah's Witnesses to knock my door amd try to "teach" me anything!

Edit: I know it's messy but this ain't a subject interesting enough for me to bother sort it out! Barely interesting enough to make an edit !

[demonfork]

A good question: but even as a non-christian I can point out that many people saw Jesus and didn't realize or didn't believe he was the messiah. Physical gold tablets written by god are, I would think, fairly persuasive.

So if the word of God, written on plates of gold, and physically witnessed, was not enough to convince these people that this church was the right one, why would anyone else join it?

You are also forgetting the three witnesses that had the evidence pointed out to them by an angel and who were later excommunicated.

I could ask the same thing of biblical figures like King Solomon or Judas.

King Solomon had direct contact with God, yet he turned away from Him to worship false idols.

Judas walked amongst Christ, witnessed all of his miracles, yet he betrayed Jesus in the end.

If King Solomon, Judas and many other biblical figures are capable of these things why would any one else be exempt from it?

I'm not sure how excommunication is defined in the Moron Church, but I thought that to be excommunicated is to be forced out of an institution, not having doubts about one's faith, or straying from the straight and narrow.

You are 100% correct, excommunication can and has happened to those that have complete faith in the Church.

[pimpdave]

You are 100% correct, excommunication can and has happened to those that have complete faith in the Church.

What?

Then how can you draw a parallel between people excommunicated from the Church and someone like King Solomon or Judas?

Are you actively dodging the real question here?

[Juan_Bottom]

It's an incredibly boring subject because the only thing atheists and religious people of all sorts can agree on is that they can't convince each other of anything!

That and Scientologists are all idiots.

[demonfork]

It's an incredibly boring subject because the only thing atheists and religious people of all sorts can agree on is that they can't convince each other of anything! Leave it that way, I won't try to convince "believers" of anything, in return I don't want Jehovah's Witnesses to knock my door amd try to "teach" me anything!

Edit: I know it's messy but this ain't a subject interesting enough for me to bother sort it out! Barely interesting enough to make an edit !

I have no desire or intention to change the minds of those that are enemies of the Church. I only spend time refuting their lies for the benefit of those that may be lurking.

[b.k. barunt]

Guy, Nothing that you just quoted from is canonized, so no it's not doctrine not by any stretch of the imagination. Anyone has the ability to write whatever they want and call it whatever they want but if it's not officially ratified by the church then it means nothing it is merely ones opinion.

Passing off quotes from non canonical sources as Gospel is a classic ploy that anti-mormons have been using for ages. The Church has no control over what may or may not be published outside of the church. Anything that is written outside of what has been officially ratified by the the church, that is not in harmony with these official doctrines, is meaningless.


Hope that clears things up for you.

Heh heh, so you Mormons can freely practice and preach racist shite and then deny such practices since you never "canonized" them. Some people would call that cowardly, i call it chickenshit.

By the way, the snippet from Journals and Discourses was written by Brigham Young, so the president/prophet can pronounce the death penalty for any Mormon so heretical as to marry a black, but since it wasn't "canonized" he was probably just kidding.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.


Honibaz

[demonfork]

You are 100% correct, excommunication can and has happened to those that have complete faith in the Church.

What?

Then how can you draw a parallel between people excommunicated from the Church and someone like King Solomon or Judas?

Are you actively dodging the real question here?

I didn't

I was responding to this question...

"So if the word of God, written on plates of gold, and physically witnessed, was not enough to convince these people that this church was the right one, why would anyone else join it?"

[jonesthecurl]

The thing is that people DO convert to, or discard, a faith.

The discussion is not pointless, any more than missionaries knocking on people's doors is pointless.

I have discussed with people of many faiths, and none, why they believe as they do. Those who follow the church or faith they were raised in are less interesting to me, because they follow a path laid out for them.

My question is why does someone join a church/religion?

Taking Mormonism as an example, it's based on the idea that God showed this one guy his holy word carved in tablets of gold. He showed them to his dad, his brothers and members of one other family. An angel revealed their existence to three other people(I don't remember if these were relatives). God/the angel's judgement was perhaps a little faulty as almost all of these people later fell out with each other so much that they could no longer be members of the same church. Taken objectively, the whole thing looks at least a little questionable. All I want to know is, what is it that makes this a convincing scenario to so many people?

I'm not being an enemy of this church, I have no personal beef against latter-day saints, I have similar questions for those who convert to any faith or church. The question is not hostile, just genuinely puzzled.

[demonfork]

Guy, Nothing that you just quoted from is canonized, so no it's not doctrine not by any stretch of the imagination. Anyone has the ability to write whatever they want and call it whatever they want but if it's not officially ratified by the church then it means nothing it is merely ones opinion.

Passing off quotes from non canonical sources as Gospel is a classic ploy that anti-mormons have been using for ages. The Church has no control over what may or may not be published outside of the church. Anything that is written outside of what has been officially ratified by the the church, that is not in harmony with these official doctrines, is meaningless.


Hope that clears things up for you.

Heh heh, so you Mormons can freely practice and preach racist shite and then deny such practices since you never "canonized" them. Some people would call that cowardly, i call it chickenshit.

By the way, the snippet from Journals and Discourses was written by Brigham Young, so the president/prophet can pronounce the death penalty for any Mormon so heretical as to marry a black, but since it wasn't "canonized" he was probably just kidding.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.


Honibaz

Who denied that it was practiced? I quite clearly said that it was a practice, I merely pointed out that it was not a practice that was inspired by any Church Doctrine.

It was an admitted mistake to withhold the Priesthood from the black members of the Church, a mistake that was rectified 30+ years ago.

No shit the JOD was written by Brigham Young, so what, The JOD was never official Church Doctrine.

Brigham Young was a free man that could publish his personal opinions on what ever subject that he wanted to.

If some of the racist crap that is written in the JOD was truly revelation from God, then it would have been officially ratified by the Church, obviously it wasn't because last time I checked the JOD is not now nor has it ever been official Church Doctrine.

[Gillipig]

The thing is that people DO convert to, or discard, a faith.

The discussion is not pointless, any more than missionaries knocking on people's doors is pointless.

I have discussed with people of many faiths, and none, why they believe as they do. Those who follow the church or faith they were raised in are less interesting to me, because they follow a path laid out for them.

My question is why does someone join a church/religion?

Taking Mormonism as an example, it's based on the idea that God showed this one guy his holy word carved in tablets of gold. He showed them to his dad, his brothers and members of one other family. An angel revealed their existence to three other people(I don't remember if these were relatives). God/the angel's judgement was perhaps a little faulty as almost all of these people later fell out with each other so much that they could no longer be members of the same church. Taken objectively, the whole thing looks at least a little questionable. All I want to know is, what is it that makes this a convincing scenario to so many people?

I'm not being an enemy of this church, I have no personal beef against latter-day saints, I have similar questions for those who convert to any faith or church. The question is not hostile, just genuinely puzzled.

I'm not hostile towards religious people either! But if I was a jude I would hate the christian church! It's their fault the judes have been harrassed in more than a thousand years!

[jonesthecurl]

There's plenty of non-religious anti-semites, not to mention muslim ones.

[Gillipig]

There's plenty of non-religious anti-semites, not to mention muslim ones.

There's loads of documented material that confirm how the church encouraged abuse and hate towards judes! I know that the Muslims harrassed judes too but if we are to speak of a lifestance that can top christianity in abusing judes, atheism is the one! The Nazists had an atheistic lifestance, even though they are the scum of the earth! they're still connected to all the other atheistic lifestances in some ways!

[demonfork]

The thing is that people DO convert to, or discard, a faith.

The discussion is not pointless, any more than missionaries knocking on people's doors is pointless.

I have discussed with people of many faiths, and none, why they believe as they do. Those who follow the church or faith they were raised in are less interesting to me, because they follow a path laid out for them.

My question is why does someone join a church/religion?

Taking Mormonism as an example, it's based on the idea that God showed this one guy his holy word carved in tablets of gold. He showed them to his dad, his brothers and members of one other family. An angel revealed their existence to three other people(I don't remember if these were relatives). God/the angel's judgement was perhaps a little faulty as almost all of these people later fell out with each other so much that they could no longer be members of the same church. Taken objectively, the whole thing looks at least a little questionable. All I want to know is, what is it that makes this a convincing scenario to so many people?

I'm not being an enemy of this church, I have no personal beef against latter-day saints, I have similar questions for those who convert to any faith or church. The question is not hostile, just genuinely puzzled.

I have felt no hostility from any of your questions and I believe that you are genuinely seeking to learn more, that you have no axe to grind.

I agree that the story of Joseph Smith and his golden plates is a story that is hard to believe, not unlike many of the ancient stories from the Bible.

I think that so many people join the church not necessarily because of the Story of Smith and the plates but because of the many positive changes that are made to the lives of those that do decide to embrace the Gospel of Christ.

I also think that the Mormon Gospel is a version of Christianity that answers many questions that other versions of Christianity can not. It provides a more complete picture.

[Juan_Bottom]

There's plenty of non-religious anti-semites, not to mention muslim ones.

There's loads of documented material that confirm how the church encouraged abuse and hate towards judes! I know that the Muslims harrassed judes too but if we are to speak of a lifestance that can top christianity in abusing judes, atheism is the one! The Nazists had an atheistic lifestance, even though they are the scum of the earth! they're still connected to all the other atheistic lifestances in some ways!

Dude, someone laced your weed. Be careful where you buy that sh*t.

[Gillipig]

There's plenty of non-religious anti-semites, not to mention muslim ones.

There's loads of documented material that confirm how the church encouraged abuse and hate towards judes! I know that the Muslims harrassed judes too but if we are to speak of a lifestance that can top christianity in abusing judes, atheism is the one! The Nazists had an atheistic lifestance, even though they are the scum of the earth! they're still connected to all the other atheistic lifestances in some ways!

Dude, someone laced your weed. Be careful where you buy that sh*t.

You must have smoked a lot of that sh*t when you made that post, didn't you know that the Nazists had an atheistic lifestance? They don't believe in a god, and they too think highly of Darwin etc. One difference between Nazists and social Darwinism and other Atheistic lifestances lies in how they interpret people like Darwin! The nazists focused on Darwins "survival of the fittest", and thought that we humans too should fight among each other for survival. while most atheistic life stances were interested in the facts he proved, the Nazists were more fanatic and took his words literally! There are loads of things that bind the different life stances together and anyone who call himself an atheist (I do) should be aware of that there are many different kinds of atheism, and that the word is not more precise than "religious"! Therefore it's as ridicoulus to try to defend all the atheistic lifestances as it is to defend all different religions! I'm a mix between existentialist, humanist and modern naturalist, 3 different sorts of atheism! Other are ex. Communism and Nazism! If I would try to defend all atheistic lifestances I would have to combine philosophies who stand for completely different things. That would be impossible and I sincerily hope that's not your intention Juan_Bottom!

[luns101]

There's loads of documented material that confirm how the church encouraged abuse and hate towards judes! I know that the Muslims harrassed judes too but if we are to speak of a lifestance that can top christianity in abusing judes, atheism is the one! The Nazists had an atheistic lifestance, even though they are the scum of the earth! they're still connected to all the other atheistic lifestances in some ways!

IMHO it was the Mooselimbs who harassed the Judes more than anyone else. Sure, ewe could say the Christmas people maid life hard on the Judes butt it was less of badness against them. It wood bee very interesting to see the loaded material against the churches. Loaded material that is documentated can produce a lot of evidence.

It is true that sum Faceists were atheistical but most were just national socialisms who wanted power inside of Germany. Even some Christmas people joined them.

[b.k. barunt]

The Nazis were atheists? Where did you get that? Link please.

The Nazis followed Hitler, and Hitler sought to ressurrect the old gods. Plenty of film (seen some of it on TV) that covers Nazi Aryan religious rites with thousands of young Nazi men and women, sacrifices, fertility rites, etc. Hitler spent well over a million dollars (a shitload of money in that day) in attempts to locate the Akashic Records, which some say he found.

So i'm curious as to where you got your info.


Honibaz

[b.k. barunt]

Guy, Nothing that you just quoted from is canonized, so no it's not doctrine not by any stretch of the imagination. Anyone has the ability to write whatever they want and call it whatever they want but if it's not officially ratified by the church then it means nothing it is merely ones opinion.

Passing off quotes from non canonical sources as Gospel is a classic ploy that anti-mormons have been using for ages. The Church has no control over what may or may not be published outside of the church. Anything that is written outside of what has been officially ratified by the the church, that is not in harmony with these official doctrines, is meaningless.


Hope that clears things up for you.

Heh heh, so you Mormons can freely practice and preach racist shite and then deny such practices since you never "canonized" them. Some people would call that cowardly, i call it chickenshit.

By the way, the snippet from Journals and Discourses was written by Brigham Young, so the president/prophet can pronounce the death penalty for any Mormon so heretical as to marry a black, but since it wasn't "canonized" he was probably just kidding.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.


Honibaz

Who denied that it was practiced? I quite clearly said that it was a practice, I merely pointed out that it was not a practice that was inspired by any Church Doctrine.

It was an admitted mistake to withhold the Priesthood from the black members of the Church, a mistake that was rectified 30+ years ago.

No shit the JOD was written by Brigham Young, so what, The JOD was never official Church Doctrine.

Brigham Young was a free man that could publish his personal opinions on what ever subject that he wanted to.

If some of the racist crap that is written in the JOD was truly revelation from God, then it would have been officially ratified by the Church, obviously it wasn't because last time I checked the JOD is not now nor has it ever been official Church Doctrine.

The reason people like me have an "axe to grind" is that we find Mormons to be dishonest. The point in question is an excellent example. You're playing fast and loose with the word "canonized", insofar as most people are unfamiliar with the Mormon usage of that word. When the Mormons "canonize" something they make it public knowledge. Mormons don't like a lot of their beliefs (like racism and polygamy) aired to the public at large. It's called deniability. Something to bear in mind when one hears a Mormon bandy the word "canonize".

Brigham Young was the absolute ruler of the Mormon religion/culture. Any elders were designated as such and given nominal authority by Brigham Young. What he said was law, and such law was accepted as "doctrine". If Young said interracial marriage was punishable by death, then no one raised the question of whether of not that was "canonized".

Like polygamy, the church embraced and practiced the uncanonized doctrine of racism until they were forced by society to discontinue such. Early (and some recent) Christians chose imprisonment and/or death rather than choose the laws of man over God, but such honesty can also be monetarily costly, and the Mormons have a billion dollar empire to consider. Therefore anything they "canonize" has to be legal.


Honibaz

[2dimes]

Ok, you were serious in wondering how Joseph could have mimicked the King James bible when he may have even spoke in a more similar english to it than to modern American. Well gosh that is mysterious.

[PLAYER57832]

My question is why does someone join a church/religion?

I think I answered this before, but its basically as Demonfork said. People join a religion because it answers questions they cannot get elsewhere and/or provides a "something" they cannot get elsewhere.

Sometimes it is plain practical needs like food, basic freindships with people. Usually one does not join just for those practical reasons, though.

[demonfork]

Guy, Nothing that you just quoted from is canonized, so no it's not doctrine not by any stretch of the imagination. Anyone has the ability to write whatever they want and call it whatever they want but if it's not officially ratified by the church then it means nothing it is merely ones opinion.

Passing off quotes from non canonical sources as Gospel is a classic ploy that anti-mormons have been using for ages. The Church has no control over what may or may not be published outside of the church. Anything that is written outside of what has been officially ratified by the the church, that is not in harmony with these official doctrines, is meaningless.


Hope that clears things up for you.

Heh heh, so you Mormons can freely practice and preach racist shite and then deny such practices since you never "canonized" them. Some people would call that cowardly, i call it chickenshit.

By the way, the snippet from Journals and Discourses was written by Brigham Young, so the president/prophet can pronounce the death penalty for any Mormon so heretical as to marry a black, but since it wasn't "canonized" he was probably just kidding.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.


Honibaz

Who denied that it was practiced? I quite clearly said that it was a practice, I merely pointed out that it was not a practice that was inspired by any Church Doctrine.

It was an admitted mistake to withhold the Priesthood from the black members of the Church, a mistake that was rectified 30+ years ago.

No shit the JOD was written by Brigham Young, so what, The JOD was never official Church Doctrine.

Brigham Young was a free man that could publish his personal opinions on what ever subject that he wanted to.

If some of the racist crap that is written in the JOD was truly revelation from God, then it would have been officially ratified by the Church, obviously it wasn't because last time I checked the JOD is not now nor has it ever been official Church Doctrine.

The reason people like me have an "axe to grind" is that we find Mormons to be dishonest. The point in question is an excellent example. You're playing fast and loose with the word "canonized", insofar as most people are unfamiliar with the Mormon usage of that word. When the Mormons "canonize" something they make it public knowledge. Mormons don't like a lot of their beliefs (like racism and polygamy) aired to the public at large. It's called deniability. Something to bear in mind when one hears a Mormon bandy the word "canonize".

Brigham Young was the absolute ruler of the Mormon religion/culture. Any elders were designated as such and given nominal authority by Brigham Young. What he said was law, and such law was accepted as "doctrine". If Young said interracial marriage was punishable by death, then no one raised the question of whether of not that was "canonized".

Like polygamy, the church embraced and practiced the uncanonized doctrine of racism until they were forced by society to discontinue such. Early (and some recent) Christians chose imprisonment and/or death rather than choose the laws of man over God, but such honesty can also be monetarily costly, and the Mormons have a billion dollar empire to consider. Therefore anything they "canonize" has to be legal.


Honibaz

There is no doubt that the Church has a dark past when it comes the racist teachings that were tolerated and practiced. It is also unfortunate that it took until the 1970's to abolish these practices. Modern day Mormons are not proud of this past. Church leaders have publicly admitted that these practices were wrong and were not in line with Church Doctrine.

Today, thankfully, things are much different... here is some relevant information on the subject.

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng ... -relations
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng ... eclaration
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng ... ntolerance
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng ... revelation
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng ... ch-members
http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnex ... &hideNav=1
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?v ... &hideNav=1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01409.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/nyreg ... ref=slogin
http://www.chicagoreporter.com/index.ph ... lind_faith



With regards to polygamy...

The twelfth Mormon article of faith states...

"We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law."

When polygamy became illegal to practice in the US, there was already a precedence set for how to handle the situation, as you can see by the above article of faith.

[luns101]

There is not one single scroll/document/papyrus/tablet that exists that is an original record that the Bible was translated from, they are all copies of copies of copies copies of copies. In fact the copies that do exist can't even be genealogically traced to their author.

Well, it's not like we haven't heard this myth repeated over and over again by CC atheists so it's no surprise that the Mormons here do it either. Yes, the originals have not been used to translate the Bible into modern day languages. We do, however, have manuscript copies that are only separated from the originals by anywhere from 29 years - 160 years. That's extremely important because it speaks to the authenticity and veracity of the scriptures.

Just a partial list:

Rom. 5:17-6:3,5-14; 8:15-25, 27-35, 37-9:32; 10:1-11, 22, 24-33, 35-14:8,9-15:9, 11-33; 16:1-23, 25-27; Heb.; 1 & 2 Cor., Eph., Gal., Phil., Col.; 1 Thess. 1:1,9-10; 2:1-3; 5:5-9, 23-28 dated at 200 A.D. separated by approximately 150 years from the original date of authorship. They are held at The Chester Beatty Museum, Dublin and also University of Michigan library, Ann Arbor, Michigan

John 1:1-6:11,35-14:26; fragment of 14:29-21:9 dated at 200 A.D. separated by approximately 130 years from the original date of authorship. They are held in Cologne, Geneva

Matt. 3:9,15; 5:20-22, 25-28 dated at 200 A.D. separated by approximately 130 years from the original date of authorship. They are held in Barcelona, Spain at Fundacion San Lucas Evangelista

John 18:31-33,37-38 dated at 125 A.D. separated by approximately 29 years from the original date of authorship. They are held at The John Rylands Library, Manchester, England

The total number of manuscript copies (complete & partials) is close to 24,000.

We have manuscript copies of the originals that can be cross-checked against the Syriac version translated from 150-250 A.D. and also the Latin version translated around 300-400 A.D. We do not have copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies.

That myth has been invented so that people who don't like what the message of the Bible is all about (man is a sinner who needs to be redeemed by Christ in order to avoid an eternal judgment in hell) can use the excuse that the Bible is unreliable in the transmission of the text.

[luns101]

By the way, Gillipig, in case you haven't figured it out yet I am a believer in Jesus Christ. I've just been having some fun with you. In reality, the fact that you would be willing to post here with imperfect English and share your opinions is admirable and it's not like I could speak a word of your language.

Of course, I can understand when my wife curses at me in Tagalog.

[jonesthecurl]

You should hear people getting angry in Welsh. It's a lovely language for cursing.