One of the many issues raised by certain former members: Has the Church lied about what it claims to be? In other words, has it deceived people about what it claims to be? Has it acted in bad faith in what it claims to be?
I am willing to make one last attempt at having a reasoned discussion on this question. Let's see how it goes.
To answer this questions, there must first be established what it is that the Church claims to be. Correct?
Do you agree that, simply and generally stated, the Church claims to be the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints?
Do you agree that, more specifically, the Church claims to be the gospel of Christ restored in the latter days, the kingdom of God on earth, the "one true Church" headed by Christ through his chosen prophets and priestood leaders?
Generally speaking, what else do you see the Church as claiming to be?
Loran:
This was the original concept of a thread below which became bogged down (quite by accident of course) in accusatins of deception and of having "set up" the thread. Now, shall we perhaps try again, and let me be specific, in my own words, about what I would like to see here (which, with due respect to Wade, may not be exactly what he had in mind, but should be a close call).
The core question is "has the Church lied about what it claims to be"? That is, has the Church (or its founder), knowingly, willfully, and with intent to do so, engaged in deception? This is not a question about whether or not the Church is true, as a metaphysical question, or whether or not one believes or disbeleives the Church's claims as to doctrine and authority. It is a question of whether or not the Church actually believes what it teaches as over against their being some guile involved.
One question relative to this is, of course, whether or not Joseph Smith lied about his experiences and the Church's origins. This question, regardless of the self satisfied certititude expressed by some critics here, is historically far from demonstrated by the church's critics, and has, indeed, been addressed plausibly be several generations of competant LDS schloars and commentators. Regardless of this point, the modern church, and the successors of Joseph Smith, in their carrying on with the gospel's teachings and practices, must be doing such either in good faith, or with a knowledge of Joseph's deceptions and hence, with guile.
So when we ask, "is the Chuch lying", we ask both whether Josehp Smith lied and whether the authorities of the Church since that original nineteenth century generation have also continued to lie about what the church "claims to be".
The two questions, though connected, are also divergent in that even if Joseph Smith lied, this would only make the church's claims untrue. It would not make modern claims for their veracity mendacious, any more than a modern follower of Vedic tradtiion who claims that the entire universe is the dream of Brahma could be accused of lying to us in so saying, even if the long dead originators of that concept knew themselves that the entire thing was nothing but a flight of fancy.
The next track to pursue would be detailed, point for point examination of the examples of deception critics claim demonstrate mendacity on the part of either Joseph or the modern church to see, under the stern light of philosophical and scholarly rigor, if they hold up to inspection. We will here, as TBM's, not attempt to conclusively disprove each and every point (as this is neither possible nor necessary) but only conclusively disprove where such is clearly marked and with historical questions that cannot be unambiguously laid to rest, provide plausible explanations of such a nature that the criticisms are rendered inert; they should be, to a fair minded observer, placed in sufficient doubt that the two sides can agree to disagree without dogmatic assertions on either side but with the critics at least giving the benefit of the doubt to Joseph and the Church when sufficient counter evidence has been put on the table to either logically and/or historically render the example or criticism plausibly mistaken.
Could we proceed form there?