LDSDoubter wrote:To answer a few of the things some previous posters mentioned:
WAY MORE THAN 3 Things the church is lying about:
1. The true character of Joseph Smith, just check the priesthood manual and vc movie. One poster on here even has the date of an extramarital affair Joseph Smith had 3 years before sealings/polygamy started.
2. The Ira Fulton affair/closed books (no other "respectable" church hides its financials from members)
3. Having a paid clergy
4. Emma Smith, someone who poisons people and is an apostate, as the "elect lady."
5. Joseph Smith fulfilling the masonic prophecies of the 1820s, no longer taught today in masonic circles
6. Initiatory lifted from Celtic witchcraft (forerunner to wicca)
7. Endowment lifted from masonry and the Cochranites
8. Book of Abraham names taken from first chapter of Sexias Alphabet & Grammar & Exodus 6, storyline from Thomas Dick, and popular masonic works at the time
9. 1st degree masonic blood oath between Satan and Cain in the Book of Moses, thousands of years before it was invented
10. Captian Kidd pirate mythology in the Book of Mormon (slippery treasure)
11. Royal arch masonry storyline/Spaulding novel for discovery of Book of Mormon con
12. Alma 40 quotes the Westminster Confession
13. Thousands of changes in the Book of Mormon, some changing doctrine
14. 6,000 changes in the D&C, some changing doctrine
15. Story of Tecumseh (Teancum) and Moraviantown (Morianton) from the War of 1812 in the Book of Mormon
16. Moroni, Camora (similar to 1830 Book of Mormon spelling) from Captian Kidd legend, both names used for Book of Mormon in the finding of the plates story
17. Numerous failed prophecies in the D&C (temple in Missouri, among others)
18. Phony prophecies added to D&C long after the events happened to improve the D&C track record (civil war, saints in rocky mtns
19. Doctrines witheld from investigators
20. 3 Degrees of Glory and Celestial Marriage taken from Swedenborg
21. Adam-God Doctrine
22. Blood Atonement/Rosmos Anderson, John D. Lee, etc.
23. Castrations in early Utah for adultery
24. Early church leaders practicing occult sciences (scrying, rods, seer stones, magick parchments, daggers/wands, numerical matrices, talismans, etc.)
25. Brigham Young stealing $1 million from church (listen to "Church is not true" beehive house tour podcast)
And that is just at the top of my head. I'm sure others could contribute more. You don't have to search too hard to catch them in lies, they've got lying down as a science! If the LDS church would come clean about all these things, make its membership requirements more liberal, and not stick to things they know are untrue I wouldn't have a problem with it, but when they lie just to reel in tithers, and dupe believers into thinking they are "the one true church" and get as much as they can before you discover the truth, it's just sickening. That's the only reason they don't come clean with a full-disclosure, they want to get as much as they can from everyone before they find out.
The church should be honest about its history, disclose where all funds are going in an annual report to the members (as is customary with other churches), and answer the charges that have been levied against its leadership, scriptures, curriculum, scholars, etc. The more they are quiet about it and only putting out falsehoods is the more suspicious they look.
They've hurt a lot of people, it's no wonder there is the class-action lawsuit already circulating on the web. I know they've hurt four people in my family already and I've had many friends I've met in the church that have quit after being hurt.
Also, I am not an agnostic, I'm a Bible-believing Christian (once again).
Doubter
All your list is arguable and debatable. You have to show that the top leadership knowingly acknowledges that the items on your list are indeed factual and that they knowingly are lying about them. Some of your list they may not be aware of. Some of your list has some valid points that could be worth discussing but others of things seem like sheer nonsense.
The fact that there is a class action suit means nothing. Anyone can start a suit about almost anything. So what?
Now I can agree with you about the Church being more open about its history and I think it ought to present a more balances history. I think Bushman's Bio on Joseph Smith is good start.
As for you being a Bible believing Christian I am happy for you if it meets your needs. But at the moment I an highly dubious that you have explored the many problems of Christanity with the same vigor your have the LDS Church. Of course that is your choice. Personally I find it rather specious though when someone rails on the LDS Church but they won't explore their own or newly adopted tradition with the same methodology. So excuse me but in such cases your positions just ring hollow to me.