"These days I can smell the fear in Mormonism."

[Guest]

hagoth7,

Thank you for your response. It seems that in your world everything is fine and you are quite comfortable being identified with an organization founded on fraud and deceit, and fueled by unfounded belief and wild speculation (which you have apparently seen fit to expand substantially in your personal worldview).

Don't worry, I will not be providing a rebuttal. Your response is pretty much what I expected, and I don't want to waste any more of my time, or yours.

You asked me what questions should be asked. The questions that should be asked are the ones that I answered in my post:

- Was the founder of the LDS Church at least minimally trustworthy, or was the Church founded by an individual who lied, cheated, and committed adultery on a massive scale?
- Why does the Church have a long track record of racism, bigotry and "Lying for the Lord"?
- Why does the LDS Church continue to cover up the (abundant) unsavory aspects of its history and do its best to control what members know about it?
- Why does the LDS Church not disclose financial information to the members who provide the finances?

I would ask you one question though. Given the many close similarities between the LDS Church and the Church of Scientology, do you also view the latter as a benign organization that is worthy of support, in spite of its obviously fictional foundational truth claims, secret finances, and severely checkered history?
_______________________________

ETA: As to my wife, you must have her confused with the offended wife of some other member of the board. My wife is a non-believer (NOM) who is still active. So she has clearly not been offended badly enough to leave.

[_Fence Sitter]

I went inactive out of boredom. 22 years of sitting in meetings killed any desire I had to attend church. I was at BYU and there was no need for me to go to church on Sunday, even to socialize, as opportunities to do so were abundant.

I am always a bit amused by some of the reasons listed by still active members that they think are used non believers to leave. He/she wanted to leave to sin, or because someone offended them. I know this will come as a surprise to some, but members sin too and get just as offended as nonmembers.

If I just wanted to sin I could have stayed active.
Leaving the church does not prevent one from getting offended.

[_ludwigm]

...
I am no longer associated with the LDS Church because it is an organization built on lies, unfounded belief, and a large dose of nepotism and I see it as corrupt to its core. And I am not the only one.

I am happy that I didn't joined after six year "investigator" status.
There is a man in TheChurch to whom I promised he will be who baptize me - if anybody. A real friend.
That time, I said it will be not tomorrow. I should orient before.
I did it.

Ten years later, I said him it won't be even on the day after tomorrow - because I know too much about this church. Much more than any member I know here in H.

[_ludwigm]

The point about the First Vision and the much-later D&C 130 is that there appears to be a discrepancy between LDS scripture and a few modern teachers' manuals.
(Unless it was a much more intimately involved First Visitation that we've been told little about, rather than a First Vision)

Intimately involved? Intimately ???
Meeting, talking with God, two or 2473 Gods is a most important event one can experience. That man (woman?) should carve it in stone the date, time, moon phase and every word. Everything. Even the number of that aliens. (tobin...)
Today, it were recorded as video, audio, and many selfie.

Can somebody forget anything? One angel, one being, TWO beings ***, their name, the year, the hour --- any circumstance? A moron, maybe; not a prophet of that god/gods.

Any prophet should cry from the next rooftop: "people! men and women! I've met with God (...gods...); I've talked with him (her, it, them ...); he (she, it, they...) said ME --- got it? ME --- this and that".

At least, any man with normal brain would do this.

Matthew 10:27. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. --- if I, the atheist can cite from the Bible ---


____________________
***
Jehovah and Elohim.
You know, like Charles Dickens and Boz, Samuel Langhorne Clemens and Mark Twain, Charles Dodgson and Lewis Carroll.
Even like Rudyard Kipling and Lip-King...
( viewtopic.php?p=881987#p881987 )

[_Tator]

I actually believe Freemasonry is nothing more than a relic of Nephite temple worship in ancient/medieval Europe, transferred to Europe around the time of Hagoth. (Yes, I believe Nephites existed, and still exist. And yes, I believe they may well be among your forefathers - and that you are now likely one of them.) So I believe Joseph restored the Nephite elements.

Absolutely the strangest paragraph in this thread and it speaks volumes to me about the poster, Hagoth7.

[_Themis]

Again. How are you so sure it was intentional deception? What's your basis for laying such a claim at the feet of the church?

You seem to be looking for some kind of written admission of being dishonest. Why would they say that directly? BKP comes as close as one can without using the word dishonest to describe his behavior. If that doesn't count as great evidence I don't know what does. We can also look at things like the multiple first visions from Joseph and ask why we only get the one on an event the church has lots of lessons about. An event that is pivotal to the church. I suspect if they all were closer to the last one we would see them in many of the lessons on the first vision. Also the translation of the Book of Mormon. The only method we have for the Book of Mormon we have is from a rock in a hat, but the lesson manuals, which go over the translation event a lot, avoid it, and present something else. Are you suggesting that the people making up the manuals for the church don't know their history well?

[_hagoth7]

I actually believe Freemasonry is nothing more than a relic of Nephite temple worship in ancient/medieval Europe, transferred to Europe around the time of Hagoth. (Yes, I believe Nephites existed, and still exist. And yes, I believe they may well be among your forefathers - and that you are now likely one of them.) So I believe Joseph restored the Nephite elements.

Absolutely the strangest paragraph in this thread and it speaks volumes to me about the poster, Hagoth7.

OK. My kids say I'm strange. At least you agree with them.

What's so strange about Nephites in Europe?

Title page of the Book of Mormon: "...Which is to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever..."

To show unto whom?

The first recorded section of the Doctrine and Covenants (prior to the translation of the Book of Mormon):
Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers....

The second recorded section of the Doctrine and Covenants (also prior to the translation of the Book of Mormon):
...Nevertheless, my work shall go forth, for inasmuch as the knowledge of a Savior has come unto the world, through the testimony of the Jews, even so shall the knowledge of a Savior come unto my people—And to the Nephites, and the Jacobites, and the Josephites, and the Zoramites, through the testimony of their fathers...

And there is much more like that, including Lehi's promise to his son Joseph, that his seed would be spared, and that a latter-day seer would descend through him.

Many things that I have found in European history corroborate these promises.

So color me crazy if you prefer, but I actually believe in the promises in scripture. I believe the Book of Mormon happens to be part of my family history - and that it is likely part of yours too.

Thoughts?

[_Kishkumen]

My thought are that Nephites never existed in the real world.

[_Tator]

So color me crazy if you prefer, but I actually believe in the promises in scripture. I believe the Book of Mormon happens to be part of my family history - and that it is likely part of yours too.

Thoughts?

I never called you crazy in any color, I implied you wrote the strangest paragraph on this thread. Yes, the influence of the belief in the novel Book of Mormon is part of my family history but I do not believe in any of it.

What's so strange about Nephites in Europe?

What is strange is that Nephites don't exist in North or South America and they don't exist in Europe, simply, they don't exist.

Oh and yes I agree with your kids....

[_sock puppet]

My thought are that Nephites never existed in the real world.

That's what having thoughts will lead to.