Mercury wrote:CAEMS. I want packer to go foot fetish while he washes my feet. Then id nominate steuss for his CAEMS and we'd install a custom Vaporizer in the Holy of Holies within the Las Vegas temple.
Hash brownies is the new sacrament bread!
And ye shall offer a burnt offering for a sweet savour unto the LORD...
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~Charles Bukowski
In order for you to deduce that the church is God's true church, God would have to come down and tell you personally, wouldn't he? Do you trust this process? If a divine being showed up and told me Mormonism was true I would do one or both of two things: 1 - I'd check myself into a mental hospital, 2 - I would insist this divine being give me evidence of his divinity. A sign, a miracle, certified papers, something.
Then if this divine being passed my sign test, I'd kick him in the nads for being such a vile creature.
If this really happened why would you think the God of Mormonism is a vile creature?
Plural marriage, for a start.
The plan of salvation being a class system.
If you don't live up to the standard of perfection, cross all the i's and dot all the t's, you're separated from your family for eternity. It doesn't matter how nice the conditions are. The thought of being separated from your family forever is hell in any decent person's book.
In order for you to deduce that the church is God's true church, God would have to come down and tell you personally, wouldn't he? Do you trust this process? If a divine being showed up and told me Mormonism was true I would do one or both of two things: 1 - I'd check myself into a mental hospital, 2 - I would insist this divine being give me evidence of his divinity. A sign, a miracle, certified papers, something.
Then if this divine being passed my sign test, I'd kick him in the nads for being such a vile creature.
If this really happened why would you think the God of Mormonism is a vile creature?
Plural marriage, for a start.
The plan of salvation being a class system.
If you don't live up to the standard of perfection, cross all the I's and dot all the t's, you're separated from your family for eternity. It doesn't matter how nice the conditions are. The thought of being separated from your family forever is hell in any decent person's book.
What Liz said, plus these other salient factors:
The Mormon God claims to want his children to be happy, and they can do this through the plan of salvation, living the LDS precepts. But let's see the actions rather than the words. Less than one percent of all humanity have ever heard of this plan. You'd think that if God wanted his people to be happy he'd spread the joy around a bit more effectively.
The Mormon God insists on pigeon-holing people's mortal (and eternal) roles by their gender. That is so off the mark I don't know where to begin. No woman wants to bear children for eternity. No one. Even the most faithful of Mormon women will cringe at the idea. Particularly if they have the concept of a Heavenly Mother to go by. Because of the no-interaction rule, this relegates the celestial mother to one of a spirit incubator. Yeehaw. Chickens get more glory.
The Mormon God is a throwback to the pharasiacal arrogance and pomposity. A caffeine drink here, a double pierced earring there. I just can't get behind a God that is so micromanagerial that he needs to have his hand in such mundane and irrelevant details.
Edited to fix a typo.
"I think one of the great mysteries of the gospel is that anyone still believes it." Sethbag, MADB, Feb 22 2008
Trinity wrote:The Mormon God is a throwback to the pharasiacal arrogance and pomposity. A caffeine drink here, a double pierced earring there. I just can't get behind a God that is so micromanagerial that he needs to have his hand in such mundane and irrelevant details.
I've always thought it interesting that the LDS god cares about earrings and hair length and cafffeine, but he doesn't seem to care at all about human suffering. In Mormonism, humanitarian service is always primarily a "missionary" tool, not actually a humanitarian effort at all.
Of course, this is a purely hypothetical situation because the church is not actually true. ;)
How do you KNOW this?
Evidence.
What is you evidence?
Seriously?
For starters, I guess you don't buy that whole crazy DNA thing, huh? Those wacky scientists have no idea what they're talking about, do they?
I was asking for your views not mine. I have ones I think are problematic. I am not well enough versed to discuss the DNA issue. From what little I know about it I do not think it is a fatal evidence. There are plausible answers to it, but as noted, this is not an issue I am well versed in.
Jason Bourne wrote:I was asking for your views not mine. I have ones I think are problematic. I am not well enough versed to discuss the DNA issue. From what little I know about it I do not think it is a fatal evidence. There are plausible answers to it, but as noted, this is not an issue I am well versed in.
I think the Book of Abraham is as close to a smoking gun as we have. It simply is indefensible as an ancient scripture. Everything is wrong about it: both the alleged translation and the anachronistic text.
The Book of Mormon is also pretty obviously not what it claims to be, but I don't want to start a fight about that right now.
Add to these two bogus scriptures Joseph Smith's behavior in marrying women behind his wife's back, his moneydigging days, and his less-than-stellar record of honesty and integrity, and you have some serious problems to consider.
Jason Bourne wrote: I was asking for your views not mine. I have ones I think are problematic. I am not well enough versed to discuss the DNA issue. From what little I know about it I do not think it is a fatal evidence. There are plausible answers to it, but as noted, this is not an issue I am well versed in.
If the people who were supposed to have written the Book of Mormon were supposed to have come from the Middle East, but DNA shows the American Indians did not, I'm not sure what else one needs. You have to jump through some pretty big hoops to make the Book of Mormon work in the face of this evidence.
But to tell you the truth, that's not as compelling evidence for me as the simple fact that Joe Smith was a known con man. Does it make any sense to any intellectually honest person that the god of the universe would choose a con man to restore his church, or is it more likely he made it up? Again, start aiming for those hoops to make that work for you.
There's absolutely no question that the only way a person will justify or rationalize away these things is if they're motivated to do so due to an investment in the theology/religion. No otherwise sane person need try to explain it away with stating the obvious: it's a hoax.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
To answer the original question, for me it would be one of the following:
1. Clear, undeniable evidence that it is actually true, and not just remotely plausible (the goal of the apologist).
or
2. The church abandoning all claims of anything supernatural, and focus its efforts on helping people in this life. This would make it an attractive social club, which I would gladly join to consort once again with my family and neighbors.