Lawyer Friend Leaves Church--Shelf Nuked

[_grindael]

None of that has any bearing on the truthfulness of the teachings and principles contained within.

Yeah right, like this one,

Helaman 13:17 And behold, a curse shall come upon the land, saith the Lord of Hosts, because of the peoples’ sake who are upon the land, yea, because of their wickedness and their abominations.
18 And it shall come to pass, saith the Lord of Hosts, yea, our great and true God, that whoso shall hide up treasures in the earth shall find them again no more, because of the great curse of the land, save he be a righteous man and shall hide it up unto the Lord.
19 For I will, saith the Lord, that they shall hide up their treasures unto me; and cursed be they who hide not up their treasures unto me; for none hideth up their treasures unto me save it be the righteous; and he that hideth not up his treasures unto me, cursed is he, and also the treasure, and none shall redeem it because of the curse of the land.
20 And the day shall come that they shall hide up their treasures, because they have set their hearts upon riches; and because they have set their hearts upon their riches, and will hide up their treasures when they shall flee before their enemies; because they will not hide them up unto me, cursed be they and also their treasures; and in that day shall they be smitten, saith the Lord.
30 Yea, behold, the anger of the Lord is already kindled against you; behold, he hath cursed the land because of your iniquity.
31 And behold, the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that they become slippery, that ye cannot hold them; and in the days of your poverty ye cannot retain them.
32 And in the days of your poverty ye shall cry unto the Lord; and in vain shall ye cry, for your desolation is already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure; and then shall ye weep and howl in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts. And then shall ye lament, and say:
33 O that I had repented, and had not killed the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out. Yea, in that day ye shall say: O that we had remembered the Lord our God in the day that he gave us our riches, and then they would not have become slippery that we should lose them; for behold, our riches are gone from us.
34 Behold, we lay a tool here and on the morrow it is gone; and behold, our swords are taken from us in the day we have sought them for battle.
35 Yea, we have hid up our treasures and they have slipped away from us, because of the curse of the land.
36 O that we had repented in the day that the word of the Lord came unto us; for behold the land is cursed, and all things are become slippery, and we cannot hold them.
37 Behold, we are surrounded by demons, yea, we are encircled about by the angels of him who hath sought to destroy our souls. Behold, our iniquities are great. O Lord, canst thou not turn away thine anger from us? And this shall be your language in those days.

Mormon 1:18 And these Gadianton robbers, who were among the Lamanites, did infest the land, insomuch that the inhabitants thereof began to hide up their treasures in the earth; and they became slippery, because the Lord had cursed the land, that they could not hold them, nor retain them again.

You've got to be kidding me that this kind of wacko doggerel is "true".

[_candygal]

Consig you are a good friend and I am glad that he has you. Though he feels good about things right now..there will be highs and lows in any transition. I am hoping that whatever friends he has in church and other family will be understanding in accepting his individual decision. What about Consig?? Has the wrong road set you on a different path??

Best to you..and your friend and to all of us here who have some scars that still run deep.

Candygal

[_Dr. Shades]

He is very well informed and has definitely put in the effort to learn about his faith. . . He read the Ritner article Thursday and found that the Book of Abraham is a complete “fraud,” as he put it. He learned about the Kirtland Egyptian Papers and how the Book of Abraham is quite apparently an attempted translation from the papyri fragments that the church possesses. . . It wasn’t until he read the Ritner piece that he was aware of this issue.

Hi consiglieri,

With all possible respect to you and your friend, doesn't your first sentence, above, contradict your second, third, and fourth sentences and vice-versa?

[_Philo Sofee]

Fun, informative, and interesting as this thread has been, let me get it back on track for a moment and say something to Consig. And Consig, you can tell your friend who I am and what I was and share with him what I say here.

Ritner is also one of the most powerful influences on me seeing the Book of Abraham problematic. His response to the church essay is a bombshell and powerful. But his book......good Lord HIS BOOK! He is a one man wrecking crew. He literally decimates all of the LDS apologists all together. I have never seen the likes of it. And the other scholars and their essays are every bit as good as well.

Things look differently without the Mormon lens in your intellect. I agree to that. The rose colored glasses don't make reality. I fought tooth and nail trying to make the Egyptian stuff work for Joseph Smith. In the end, reality impinges, even if ever so gently, and it's o.k. to say it doesn't support what we have been taught. Keep learning, keep reading, and keep happy.

Thanks man!

[_Themis]

Only if you consider historical origin the determining factor in truthfulness.

What other system would you suggest and describe how one would be justified in believing they are getting accurate information?

But I don't know that it is provable by any academic means.

It's disprovable, which has been done.

None of that has any bearing on the truthfulness of the teachings and principles contained within.

Without historicity, any truthfulness of teachings and principles are not better then ones you may find in other fictional books like Harry Potter.

[_Polygamy-Porter]

I am curious what your Mormon missionary daughter thinks of this?

[_consiglieri]

“The Book of Mormon is true.” That is the message I would like you to give him from me.

Not sure how well your message would be received by my friend.

He already told me how the church's usual response to somebody like him is to tell them they need to read the Book of Mormon.

He didn't seem to think it useful advice.

[_consiglieri]

Hi consiglieri,

With all possible respect to you and your friend, doesn't your first sentence, above, contradict your second, third, and fourth sentences and vice-versa?

I see what you are saying here.

From my point of view, Mormonism is a complex system of beliefs and history. I know I was surprised to find out only a few years ago about the Elder Poelman episode in the October 1984 General Conference.

I did a face palm and wondered how on earth it could be I had managed to miss this!

Similarly to the KEP issue, I knew that there was a lot of argument about it, and people going back and forth with the obvious agenda of trying to distance Joseph Smith from their production.

But I didn't really know what all the fuss was about. Obviously something was up because so much time and energy was being used to argue this issue, and so finally I decided to go back in and dig some more and find out why.

It was only then that I learned why this was such a critical issue between apologists and critics--because the KEP are pretty much a smoking gun that at least a portion of the Book of Abraham as we have it today was, in fact, an attempted translation of Egyptian characters that are present on the surviving papyri fragments.

This pretty much demolishes the excuse that the Book of Abraham was translated from a portion of the scrolls that did not survive the Chicago fire.

So at least from my point of view, it is possible to be pretty well-versed in Mormonism and still not be aware of certain aspects that may, for one reason or other, simply have not crossed the old radar.

Until they do.

[_consiglieri]

Fun, informative, and interesting as this thread has been, let me get it back on track for a moment and say something to Consig. And Consig, you can tell your friend who I am and what I was and share with him what I say here.

Ritner is also one of the most powerful influences on me seeing the Book of Abraham problematic. His response to the church essay is a bombshell and powerful. But his book......good Lord HIS BOOK! He is a one man wrecking crew. He literally decimates all of the LDS apologists all together. I have never seen the likes of it. And the other scholars and their essays are every bit as good as well.

Things look differently without the Mormon lens in your intellect. I agree to that. The rose colored glasses don't make reality. I fought tooth and nail trying to make the Egyptian stuff work for Joseph Smith. In the end, reality impinges, even if ever so gently, and it's o.k. to say it doesn't support what we have been taught. Keep learning, keep reading, and keep happy.

Thanks man!

Thanks so much!

I will definitely pass the word along when I talk to him again.

Right now he has put the kids with relatives and taken a four-day retreat with his wife to talk about their future.

He also texted me before he left saying that he is fine during the day but that he keeps waking up at night.

This will be a bumpy road. It always is.

But you have to go through the night to get to the dawn.

[_toon]

Is your friend in California?

It would be interesting to form an informal Southern California exmo bar association. For those who no longer feel comfortable networking with the local JRCLS chapter.