Not a joke!

[_Spurven Ten Sing]

http://www.deseretnews.com/mobile/artic ... nched.html

"In addition to having articles on the MDL.org website that address common misconceptions like "magic underwear," "Jesus is the brother of Satan," and "Mormons practice polygamy," Gordon hopes journalists will contact MDL for interviews and to answer questions."

[_jon]

Doesn't the Church have a public relations department to achieve the very same thing?

Perhaps FAIR don't think the Church is doing a good enough job and have decided a verbal vigilante group is required...

They certainly don't have authorization to speak on behalf of the Church...
MDL is not owned, controlled by, or affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

From the MDL website:
'An oft-repeated claim is that Mormons believe Jesus is the brother of Satan. This claim is a distortion of what Mormons actually believe. Journalists who repeat this claim are fostering bigotry.'

From the Gospel Fundamentals Manual online at LDS.org:
Our Father in Heaven loves us, and He knew we would need help. He knew we would be very sad if we could not have bodies of flesh and bones and could not return to live with Him forever. We needed someone to help us. Our Father in Heaven wanted someone to be our Savior. Two of our brothers offered to be our Savior.

Our oldest brother, Jesus, asked our Father in Heaven to send Him. He said He would follow our Father in Heaven’s plan. He would come to the earth and teach us the things that we would need to do to return to our Father in Heaven. He would die to pay for the wrong things we did. He would also make it possible for us to live again after we die. He would allow us to choose for ourselves to obey or not to obey our Father in Heaven.

Jesus knew that it would be important for us to choose for ourselves the things we would do. If someone forced us to obey, we could not learn and become like our Father in Heaven. Jesus wanted our Father in Heaven to have all the glory and honor.

Satan, who was called Lucifer, also asked our Father in Heaven to choose him to be our Savior. He said he would come to earth and force us to do what we should do. He said that none of us would be lost. He would not allow us to choose for ourselves. As his reward, he wanted all the glory and honor our Father in Heaven had.


It would seem that the MDL is technically anti-mormon...

[_MrStakhanovite]

I, for one, welcome this new organization and hail it as the best news of the year! Mormons have become the media’s favorite punching bag, and the systematic anti-Mormonism that has been sweeping through the country has begun to reach it’s nadir. Anti-Mormon bigots…LOOK OUT!

[_DrW]

It would seem that the MDL is technically anti-mormon...

Indeed. Although the OP title is: "Not a Joke!" , MDL has been shown to be exactly that by the second post on the thread.

Like the other LDS apologetics organizations "not affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", it is pretty clear that MDL is going to make the same false claims, the same misrepresentations and the same side-stepping and obfuscations that are made by their FAIR parent organization and the NHMI.

As Jon has pointed out, the false claims are starting to show up already.

Here is a link to an article about MDL.org that appeared today in AZ (from the AP).

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/08/04/20110804mormons-defense-nonprofit-forms04-ON.html

As someone on another board stated, the comments are almost as funny as the article itself.

Another comment seen related to MDL.org: "If you get rid of the 'Mormon Myths" then there would be nothing left of Mormonism."

MDL.org reminds me of the unfortunately named Society for the Prevention of Anti-Mormonism (S.P.A.M.) http://spamlds.socialgo.com/ .

Now there is an apologist organization that definitely does more harm than good to the LDS Church.

[_3sheets2thewind]

from mdl.org

polygamy was practiced as early as 1835 in private.

concerning racism

Q : That sounds pretty racist to me. How can you justify that?

A : I wouldn’t try to justify it. Slavery in America was a racist institution. Brigham Young himself did not actually want slavery in Utah, but he did believe that black people were not the social or intellectual equals of white people, and that slavery should be tolerated for Mormon slave-holders moving to Utah as long as it was tolerated elsewhere in the United States.

Q : Why would Brigham Young believe such things?

A : Because he was a nineteenth-century American, and hardly any white people of that time, North or South, believed in equality for blacks. Slavery was still an unsettled issue throughout the nation, with some even in the South opposed to it, and many even in the North who were willing to tolerate it. Brigham Young’s ideas were really right in the mainstream of American thinking at that time. They were very close to the ideas of other prominent Americans from Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln, who himself did not even free all slaves with his Emancipation Proclamation.

[_Dad of a Mormon]

from mdl.org
...
Q : Why would Brigham Young believe such things?

A : Because he was a nineteenth-century American, and hardly any white people of that time, North or South, believed in equality for blacks. Slavery was still an unsettled issue throughout the nation, with some even in the South opposed to it, and many even in the North who were willing to tolerate it. Brigham Young’s ideas were really right in the mainstream of American thinking at that time. They were very close to the ideas of other prominent Americans from Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln, who himself did not even free all slaves with his Emancipation Proclamation.

Right. Just another regular guy who had no special relation to God whatsoever. Couldn't agree more.

[_Nightlion]

I, for one, welcome this new organization and hail it as the best news of the year! Mormons have become the media’s favorite punching bag, and the systematic anti-Mormonism that has been sweeping through the country has begun to reach it’s nadir. Anti-Mormon bigots…LOOK OUT!

You fail to read the writing on the wall, young padiwon. This will be a harassment of any sort of naysayer that the bank rollers deem obnoxious.
The CHURCH will not sue me for bringing down LDS legitimacy, these punks will. Cool that LDS have a lay ministry so the acts of any priesthood holder CAN make the Church liable when they act for and in behalf of the Church.

They want to reach out and banish me. I can feel it. There is a disturbance in their farce.

nadir? do I have to go look that up?

[_jon]

from mdl.org

polygamy was practiced as early as 1835 in private.

concerning racism

Q : That sounds pretty racist to me. How can you justify that?

A : I wouldn’t try to justify it. Slavery in America was a racist institution. Brigham Young himself did not actually want slavery in Utah, but he did believe that black people were not the social or intellectual equals of white people, and that slavery should be tolerated for Mormon slave-holders moving to Utah as long as it was tolerated elsewhere in the United States.

Q : Why would Brigham Young believe such things?

A : Because he was a nineteenth-century American, and hardly any white people of that time, North or South, believed in equality for blacks. Slavery was still an unsettled issue throughout the nation, with some even in the South opposed to it, and many even in the North who were willing to tolerate it. Brigham Young’s ideas were really right in the mainstream of American thinking at that time. They were very close to the ideas of other prominent Americans from Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln, who himself did not even free all slaves with his Emancipation Proclamation.

Sadly the MDL didn't publish this quote...
We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally...from the current teaching manual for the Aaronic Youth.

[_MrFffish]

Sadly the MDL didn't publish this quote...
We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally...from the current teaching manual for the Aaronic Youth.[/quote]

Interesting, do you have a specific citation for this?

[_moksha]

Straight out of the pages of the Knights Templar but armed with pen, sword and bank account. They will cut you critics to snickersnack.

.