False enough for me

[_The Nehor]

Just to clarify it stops with the Spirit...period.

Then its false. Why? Because the spirit is a useless standard unless one can know with certainty that it is the spirit and can never be fooled to think something is the spirit that really isn't. But I have numerous example of people being told things by what they knew to be the spirit but that turned out to be verifiably false. QED

They were wrong. Not my problem. One can know with certainty that something is the Spirit. They said it was when it wasn't.

[_antishock8]

The "Spirit". What a perfect mental loophole. Undefined. Unaccountable. Unspecific. Infallible. Of course a Mormon would believe that the "Spirit" is the ultimate arbitrar of Truth. It allows the Mormon himself the opportunity to decide what is and what isn't Truth, and certify it through a self-affirming emotive seal of approval.

[_Infymus]

The "Spirit". What a perfect mental loophole. Undefined. Unaccountable. Unspecific. Infallible. Of course a Mormon would believe that the "Spirit" is the ultimate arbitrar of Truth. It allows the Mormon himself the opportunity to decide what is and what isn't Truth, and certify it through a self-affirming emotive seal of approval.

As long as that so-called "Truth" is kept to themselves. If a Mormon had "Truth" that Tommy Monson wasn't really a true prophet and acted on that "Truth", they'd be kicked out in a heart beat.

"Truth" works as long as long as it's kosher. When it falls out of favor, a newer, better "Truth" fills the place.

I had a difficult time as member swallowing this. I was given the HOTC and JOD as "gifts" when I was first baptized in the 80s. When I would comment on items from it in Priesthood or what not, I was always looked at strangely. Those doctrines had fallen out of "favor", but no reason was ever given why.

In the end I found the only way to be a True Blue Mormon was to shut out of my mind everything and mindlessly obey. Only preach what was in the current lesson manuals. Only preach what was in the current ensign. I had to in essence either lobotomize myself or get out.

I took the red pill.

[_asbestosman]

They were wrong. Not my problem. One can know with certainty that something is the Spirit. They said it was when it wasn't.

And no true Scotsman, err Mormon, would ever say that somehing is of the spirit when it turns out to be verifiably false.

[_The Nehor]

The "Spirit". What a perfect mental loophole. Undefined. Unaccountable. Unspecific. Infallible. Of course a Mormon would believe that the "Spirit" is the ultimate arbitrar of Truth. It allows the Mormon himself the opportunity to decide what is and what isn't Truth, and certify it through a self-affirming emotive seal of approval.

As long as that so-called "Truth" is kept to themselves. If a Mormon had "Truth" that Tommy Monson wasn't really a true prophet and acted on that "Truth", they'd be kicked out in a heart beat.

"Truth" works as long as long as it's kosher. When it falls out of favor, a newer, better "Truth" fills the place.

I had a difficult time as member swallowing this. I was given the HOTC and JOD as "gifts" when I was first baptized in the 80s. When I would comment on items from it in Priesthood or what not, I was always looked at strangely. Those doctrines had fallen out of "favor", but no reason was ever given why.

In the end I found the only way to be a True Blue Mormon was to shut out of my mind everything and mindlessly obey. Only preach what was in the current lesson manuals. Only preach what was in the current ensign. I had to in essence either lobotomize myself or get out.

I took the red pill.

Hence why you were a crappy member. You learned to shut up instead of sitting down and figuring the whole Spirit thing out. If you think the standard is flawed and doesn't work (despite the Church surviving this long) then don't let the door hit you on the way out. Somehow it has worked for me....go figure.

[_Infymus]

Hence why you were a crappy member. You learned to shut up instead of sitting down and figuring the whole Spirit thing out. If you think the standard is flawed and doesn't work (despite the Church surviving this long) then don't let the door hit you on the way out. Somehow it has worked for me....go figure.

Nehor if you haven't got anything to add except personal insults, then STFU. This is how both you and Bourne act and is exactly why I call you lapdogs - and ignore pretty much all of your messages.

You have NOTHING to add. Nothing, and quite frankly I'm getting damned tired of it.

I think it is getting time to drop my subscription to MDB. This is the exact reason why I steer anyone who is looking for recovery away from MDB - people like you and Bourne. You relentlessly attack anyone who left your Cult.

I think I've had enough.

[_Reformed Egyptian]

Just to clarify it stops with the Spirit...period.

Then its false. Why? Because the spirit is a useless standard unless one can know with certainty that it is the spirit and can never be fooled to think something is the spirit that really isn't. But I have numerous example of people being told things by what they knew to be the spirit but that turned out to be verifiably false. QED

They were wrong. Not my problem. One can know with certainty that something is the Spirit. They said it was when it wasn't.

MY DEAD WIFE:
You know, several years ago my my wife and I were spiritually sure she was soon going to pass away, we didn't know how or when, but we were both 'prompted' this would happen. One day after work I was pulling up to our house and I just knew it. She had died. Burning in the bosom, Holy Ghost testified to me the truth of these things, same feeling I've had in knowing the truth about Book of Mormon and LDS Church and prophets and other spiritual experiences. I actually talked to her (with the 'eyes of my understanding' and in a spirit of 'entrancement' -- just like David Whitmer and Martin Harris and 7 other of the 11 witnesses testimonies were based upon). I knew by the Holy Ghost she was dead, a car crash specifically. I also knew because I was talking with her, spiritually, in my mind. She had really died. No doubt about it. I could have and would have testified to you that I knew that was true, even before the police showed up to tell me, which I was sure they were going to do at any moment. I went inside, paced the floor and wondered how I'd tell our kids, her family, what was I going to do. That is of course, until she walked through the front door...


GORDON B. HINCKLEY's EXTRA 6 YEARS
In 2001 during the Winter Quarter’s Temple Dedication (April 2001-ish?) I recall listening to Hinckley cry and get very emotional that this was a very special event for him, for he did not feel that he would live long enough to visit Winter Quarters again. He left all who heard him to feel and believe his earthly sojourn would be over ‘very soon’ (anyone else remember this)?. 6+ years later he passed away. Looks like Hinckley’s false spiritual premonitions and mine are a lot alike (ie. my ‘conversation with my dead wife’ --- until she walked through the front door). If the prophet can get it wrong…I guess I can too. Wait, does that mean that I could be a prophet?!


JOSEPH SMITH: $5,000 Book of Mormon COPYRIGHT
The spirit, via the rock in his hat, told Joseph Smith to send others on a mission to Canada to sell the copyright for the Book of Mormon for $5,000. It utterly failed. Why? Cuz it was Joseph Smith's thoughts and feelings he was 'seeing' in the rock in his hat (BH Roberts take on cog-dis trying to make it 'work' for him).


JOSEPH SMITH: SALEM (D&C 111)
The spirit, via the rock in his hat, told Joseph Smith and others to follow the rumors about gold being hidden in the basement of the house in Salem. Just like he couldn't find gold or treasure for 7+ years with this rock prior to 'finding' the Book of Mormon with the rock, he also could not find the buried treasure in the basement of this house. God turned the treasure hunt into a missionary journey apparently.


JOSEPH SMITH: KIRKLAND BANK
The spirit, via a voice and via revelation, or God Himself, either way, pretty high up on the Godhead latter, tells Joseph that this bank will outlast all other banks and 'eat up' all other banks and for people to give their $$$ to this bank. Band failed = failed revelation = false spirit? Or, maybe it was Joseph hearing his own mind, just as he 'saw' his own mind in the rock for the Salem gold treasure hunt?


JOSEPH SMITH SR: Angels and Gold.
Wilford Woodruff was blessed by Joseph Smith SR that an angel would show up and tell Wilford where the buried treasure was... (never happened...unless of course WW keep it secret...). Magical worldview...focus on gold and buried treasure...yet again...and the spirit is involved too of course, unless it's just 'men' speaking as men (then they ain't prophets then is they?)

Anyone else see the gold and magical world view continuation here? Even the Book of Mormon has gold and treasure slipping around in the ground once it's buried...JUST LIKE the magical worldview Joseph Smith grew up with.

But I digress...


BISHOP BLESSES A DEAD BABY:
A lady in our ward was blessed by an old bishop of ours that her baby would be well and healthy etc. It had been aborted 3 weeks earlier. She managed to push this aside and file it in the "i felt the spirit so I know it's true, but my baby was dead so I don't understand but I don't need to understand" file. The Bishop told her after the 'error' was brought up to him by this dear sister: "Sorry sister, I felt the spirit and said what it told me to say". Seems to me he was not listening to the spirit of truth which cannot lie.


BY: ADAM IS GOD: 30 YEARS OF TEACHING
BY taught for about 30 years that Adam is our Heavenly Father. It's actually in our 1997 Teachings BY Manual, pages 50-51. BY taught this was revealed to him by God Himself, it was part of the St. George temple ceremony. It was DOCTRINE that would send you to HELL for simply not believing it! Today it will send you to hell for actively teaching it cuz you'd get ex'd. Seems the spirit of revelation was 'wrong' for BY for 30 years.


The Heaven's Gate / Hale Bop cult, if you watch their testimonies, give LDS TBM testimonies.
They know:
- God told them to join
- God told them to castrate themselves (heck, that bishop and BY were ok with castrating unbelievers back in the day, nothing wrong with a good castration!)
- They know independently of any other person or being on earth through the Spirit that what they are doing is right
- Theirs is the only right way
- When the comet comes they will shed their containers and be truly one and happy


The spirit, to me, is no longer something that can be trusted to reveal "truth". If "prophets, seers and revelators" who cannot lead us astray are indeed led astray by the spirit...what hope do we have of not getting it wrong? Are we to be better at 'it' or more accurate then God's prophets who converse with him (wink wink)? SHOULD WE have to be more accurate than they?

To me, it is not the spirit, it's simply a spiritual feeling and experience, common to all mankind, in every religion. Spirit does not equal truth...if it does, the LDS Church is in full apostasy (ie. when W. Woodruff gives a revelation to end polygamy in 1890, yet 11/12 of the apostles at that time, including himself, take additional wives in the years after that 'revelation'...that equals apostasy of the LDS Church from the very top...unless it was NOT a revelation...which of course then means they lied and we are still being lied to about it being a revelation...nawww, the God of Truth who cannot lie would never lie to us via his prophets...would He? Unless of course they're 'just men'...which of course then means 'they ain't prophets'...it can't be both: but to the TBM mindset it HAS to be both...or else it becomes false and untrue).



The typical TBM LDS'r can see HG as being a cult and whacked and wrong. And they can also see the partial laundry list I wrote above, if it were talking about, oh, say, Popes of the Catholic Church, as proof of the Catholic church as being FALSE...for there are FALSE spiritual witnesses, prophets lying and deceiving and hunting treasure and focusing on gold and of giving false revelation and teaching false doctrine.

TBM's can also say in the same breath that God says it's TRUE via his Spirit to them so all of these things are 'minor issues' (can we say "cognitive dissonance"? say it with me people...the Hale Bop people said it, and you can too).

How do I know this? Not by the spirit. But by feeling the 'spirit', for years, and living in cog-dis-land, and of being as TBM as they come for years and holding all of these issues as 'minor and unimportant'...until I learned that 1+1 equals 2 and not 3. I've grown up spiritually (in my view). I made two columns, just like GBH suggested. One was "True" the other "False, Fraud and Man-Made". I then took each issue and asked myself where each issue 'fit'. The only thing in the "True" column, was that I'd 'felt the spirit'...100% of everything else fit into the "False, Fraud and Man-Made" column. When you look at that, visually, your brain kinda 'snaps' and you see things as they really are.

Best.
RE

[_Tarski]

Just to clarify it stops with the Spirit...period.

Then its false. Why? Because the spirit is a useless standard unless one can know with certainty that it is the spirit and can never be fooled to think something is the spirit that really isn't. But I have numerous example of people being told things by what they knew to be the spirit but that turned out to be verifiably false. QED

They were wrong. Not my problem. One can know with certainty that something is the Spirit. They said it was when it wasn't.

LOL
That's what they said too. Do you really not see the problem here? You seem incapable of basic self reflection.

[_GoodK]

BCSpace indicates that nothing is doctrine unless it is declared so by both the FP and the Qo12.

But,...


Where is the list of doctrines that the FP and the Qo12 have made official doctrine by joint declaration? Where are the declarations? Spread all over in a disorganized way? Nonexistent? I am interested in knowing what they left out.

One big problem is that Mormons like have invented a private and idiosyncratic interpretation of scriptures so as to keep what ever distorted bits of science they feel the need to keep.
They also refuse to be pinned down by anything and we are led in a circle
Were does the doctrinal buck stop?

its the scriptures!
no, its the words of the living prophets
no its the spirit
no its the scriptures

round and round

This dance is there to keep things indefinite so that the church can never be proven false once and for all.

But,...


Let's just say that the following facts make the church false enough for me:

1. Prophets and seers of the past have repeatedly made statements to the world and congregation that are contrary to scientific fact.
2. Prophets in the early church have made public statements contrary to what present day prophets say especially with regard to race and gender.
3. Mormon scriptures make statements contrary to scientific fact if read without doing violence to the ordinary meaning of words.
4. Educated Mormons are in direct conflict with each other over what is, or is not, doctrine (its a house of confusion).
(Most Mormon believe things contrary to science and that exactly because they say it is doctrine.)


That's false enough for me, but there is also all the problems with the Book of Abraham (false translation) and nonexistence Book of Mormon archeology not to mention the fact that the modern church doesn't look anything like the early church in terms of visions, supposed miracles and manifestations. The Mormon church is just as ossified and institutional as the catholic church. It is also boring, dry, repetitive, droning, and aesthetically business-like in dress and architecture. It is filled with stereotypical rightwing pro-establishment dogma that flies in the face of Christ’s rather liberal anti-establishment message:

Quote:
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give it to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

Well done, Tarski. Seriously.

[_Jason Bourne]

I was seriously considering posting this to the Mormon Curtain this morning. I think you've absolutely nailed it.

But you can't argue with the Cult members. You will always be dismissed. Wasn't speaking as a man, that isn't cannon, or the new one now - just because hundreds of Bishops are doing X - because it isn't in the cannon somewhere, it really isn't happening.

Regardless, I've saved this nugget.

But you see I never said bishops were not giving the bad advice.

Now on to Tarski's points.

1. Prophets and seers of the past have repeatedly made statements to the world and congregation that are contrary to scientific fact.

This is a tough one for me. I struggle with the whole literal vs. metaphorical aspects of religion. Adam and Eve are just not plausible. And when read LDS scriptures and LDS leaders on this it seems that the whole need for an atonement hinges on a literal Adam and Eve. Actually I think the whole of Christianity has a problem on this one. The New Testament certainly seems to teach a literal fall. The Book of Mormon emphasizes it even more.

Personally thought I have to view it as metaphorically to make it work.

2. Prophets in the early church have made public statements contrary to what present day prophets say especially with regard to race and gender.

Yes this is a problem. The cop out of so often something only being his opinion as well is what really is a major difficulty for me. I thought having prophets and apostles meant something. But if they really mix up their own opinon in it so much and get a lot wrong and are there to really only make sure things are on course in a general direction then why do we need them? They seem to tell us what we should be doing an awful lot that may end up just their opinion.

3. Mormon scriptures make statements contrary to scientific fact if read without doing violence to the ordinary meaning of words.

All Scripture contains this problem. Bible as well.

4. Educated Mormons are in direct conflict with each other over what is, or is not, doctrine (its a house of confusion).
(Most Mormon believe things contrary to science and that exactly because they say it is doctrine.)

I used to pooh pah shades internet vs chapel Mormon. I will here confess that he was spot on.