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Hi, my name is Rich Kelsey

I am a Never-Mo. However, I am well-studied on Mormon history:

I have read Lucy Smith’s history in its entirety as well as the Standard LDS work including articles from the Church sanctioned Encyclopedia.

As a writer, I prefer and use references to articles from BYU, and I find the ones that cover primary source material the most enlightening.

I have read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover, as well as the Book of Moses which I find fascinating.

I may/will chime in on discussions now and then but I don’t really have a heart to argue with people.

What I want is a little fellowship; and, a few people invited me here so I think I may fit in?

If people see my website and gently mock its retro look, etc., I may even find this conversation fun. I have a strong sense of humor both dry and over the top. So, I can laugh at my own shortcomings, as well as how others see me.

And, I am going to try my best to have some fun here.

Hi there, Rich. Welcome to the board! May I make a suggestion? Try posting in the Terrestrial Forum. It's the most active forum and you're most likely to encounter "fellowship" and interesting/stimulating/entertaining conversations there, in my opinion.

Regardless: welcome!

rich kelsey wrote:Hi, my name is Rich Kelsey

I am a Never-Mo. However, I am well-studied on Mormon history:

I have read Lucy Smith’s history in its entirety as well as the Standard LDS work including articles from the Church sanctioned Encyclopedia.

As a writer, I prefer and use references to articles from BYU, and I find the ones that cover primary source material the most enlightening.

I have read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover, as well as the Book of Moses which I find fascinating.

I may/will chime in on discussions now and then but I don’t really have a heart to argue with people.

What I want is a little fellowship; and, a few people invited me here so I think I may fit in?

If people see my website and gently mock its retro look, etc., I may even find this conversation fun. I have a strong sense of humor both dry and over the top. So, I can laugh at my own shortcomings, as well as how others see me.

And, I am going to try my best to have some fun here.

Hi Rich.

I see from your website that you are critical of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Please send those in need links to articles on this site; together we can steer people away from false hopes, shattered dreams, and wasted lives.

You will find that you are in good company here, as the majority of members of MDB are critics, hostile-critics, or outright anti-Mormon. There are a dwindling number of LDS here, like myself.

You might also want to check out Mormon Dialogue, where there are stricter rules on behavior (everyone is supposed to be nice to each other and focus only on the argument, not the person).

Hello Doctor Scratch and also Simon Belmont.

Thank you both for the welcome and a bit of a ‘heads up.’

For the last two years I have been hanging around at Ex-Mormon Forums. I absolutely love that board because for some odd reason I fit in there.

Yet, I was invited here; I accidently joined a board last week thinking it may have been the one I was invited to, but it was not.

So, I finally found the right board.

Simon, seeing that you took the effort to go to my site, you may desire to check out the comments section:
http://richkelsey.org/comments_on_an_in ... _story.htm

Rich Kelsey

Because this is my introductory post and I may not have this opportunity again I want to share some of my thoughts:

I worked with a TBM for a year or more at Boeing and we had a lot of discussions. One of the reasons I wrote my Mormon articles was because way back in the day I did a poor job of answering Bob’s arguments. A lot of the reason for that was because there just wasn’t much good material out there.

Then, in the 1990s I had a business associate who was an Ex-Mormon. He loaned me No Man Knows My History. I have since bought the book and I have read it again.

I was/am fascinated with the story of the lost 116 pages and I thought,

“I could write about this and make the subject clear.”

So I did.

(Fast forward to today)

Just when I thought I was done writing about Mormonism because I need to move ahead with other projects I began thinking what am I to do with a half written work on the Book of Moses that I have spent years on?

Maybe in ten years I will find the time to finish that work? Or, I may start it sooner?

(I’m sharing my heart as a writer)

I kind of want to pen a best selling Novel with a Christian message.


Rich Kelsey

Okay, Rich:

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are, at least on the surface, sincere. I read the comments you linked me to. All of them are comments made by ex-Mormons and anti-Mormons, and some are by people who have just signed their names and no other information. A sampling:

Jodi, ex-Mormon
Jim Whitefield — author of the book series: The Mormon Delusion
Richard Packham
Administrator of http://josephsmithprophet.com/ (an anti-Mormon site)
Abinadi, Ex-Mormon Forums moderator

And we have one "active member of the Mormon Church [sic]"

David, active member of the Mormon Church

Well, Rich, there is no such thing as "the Mormon Church" in the first place, yet your site refers to my church by this name repeatedly. It is a nickname for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

So where are all the LDS comments? I've now read everything on your website, and because you haven't yet shown otherwise I believe you have basically good intentions, but that you are severely lacking in understanding of my faith (and perhaps that is why you attack it).

Hello Simon Belmont,

You said,

Well, Rich, there is no such thing as "the Mormon Church" in the first place, yet your site refers to my church by this name repeatedly. It is a nickname for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

And,

So where are all the LDS comments? I've now read everything on your website, and because you haven't yet shown otherwise I believe you have basically good intentions, but that you are severely lacking in understanding of my faith (and perhaps that is why you attack it).

In the first place I know that “the Mormon Church” is a nickname. I gave the idea of whether I should use that name or not a lot of thought; it was only after seeing the name used @ LDS org by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that I decided to go ahead and use it. You are the first person to let me know how wrong you feel it is for me to use that name.

I have no problem using the name Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Please look at this statement:

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the official name of the religion commonly called the Mormon Church.” (http://Mormon.org/)

That was taken from the LDS site a few minutes ago under the heading “Who We Are.”

So, if “there is no such thing as the Mormon Church” the LDS Church is referring to nothing with their own words “the religion commonly called the Mormon Church;” or, at the very least it is they who are propagating an untruth. Why do they not just say, “there is no such thing as the Mormon Church.”

I use LDS material to form my understanding of who they claim they are and what they believe and it is so misleading — so many inconstancies. Do you have enough clout to have the LDS org page changed to align with what you are saying? So that investigators like me won’t be confused?

As far as your other question: “So where are all the LDS comments?”

My answer:

Only one LDS comment has come in and it is in the comments section.

What’s funny is: that person said nothing about the improper use of the term Mormon Church.

One thing I know for sure is that I am not going to find a way to please everyone. Yet, even with that said, I believe you have a somewhat valid point: it would be better to use the name: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I knew that in the first place but I let the LDS org site fool me! I thought they made it ok.

I will make some changes in this regard.

Thanks,

Rich

Welcome to the board, Rich!

I met Rich on Ex-Mormon Forums, and when I started talking to him about my NOM-ness, he became curious about my association with other message boards. He apparently had a rather bad experience when joining the NOM board.

I told him about MDB, and invited him to join our community here!

Simon--play nice with our new friend. He is sincere, and a really nice person. :-)

Rich, I am going to move your post to the Terrestrial Forum so it will get more traffic.

We don't really have an "intro" section here.

The main forum of "action" is the Terrestrial Forum here. The Telestial Forum is more of an "anything goes" forum.

The Celestial Forum is heavily moderated with more "rated G" and scholarly conversations.

Enjoy, and welcome! :-)

Hi Rich. Watch out for Simon, he's a crafty one.

rich kelsey wrote:Hi, my name is Rich Kelsey

I am a Never-Mo. However, I am well-studied on Mormon history:

I have read Lucy Smith’s history in its entirety as well as the Standard LDS work including articles from the Church sanctioned Encyclopedia.

As a writer, I prefer and use references to articles from BYU, and I find the ones that cover primary source material the most enlightening.

I have read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover, as well as the Book of Moses which I find fascinating.

I may/will chime in on discussions now and then but I don’t really have a heart to argue with people.

What I want is a little fellowship; and, a few people invited me here so I think I may fit in?

If people see my website and gently mock its retro look, etc., I may even find this conversation fun. I have a strong sense of humor both dry and over the top. So, I can laugh at my own shortcomings, as well as how others see me.

And, I am going to try my best to have some fun here.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.