How did it go so horribly wrong?

[_Sophocles]

With regards to the other books, no apostles or prophets are jet setting around the world and none of them spend lots of time relaxing on some island paradise. This is, as Brian Laundrie alludes, just an attitude problem among you. A seriously intellectually dishonest one.

How does that saying go? "Better to keep your books closed and let people think you must have something to hide than open them and remove all doubt."

[_cwald]

With regards to the other books, no apostles or prophets are jet setting around the world and none of them spend lots of time relaxing on some island paradise. This is, as Brian Laundrie alludes, just an attitude problem among you. A seriously intellectually dishonest one.

How does that saying go? "Better to keep your books closed and let people think you must have something to hide than open them and remove all doubt."

Never heard that quote. Did a Mormon apostle come up with it in general conference?

[_Cicero]

[Cicero squirms uncomfortably trying to make himself think like an apologist]

Dear Brother Bob:

The only thing "horribly wrong" here is you. There are so many smart and well credentialed folks out there that have encountered all of the same issues and kept their faith. So what's your problem Bob? I mean, do you seriously think that you're somehow smarter than Dallin Oaks? The guy graduated in the top of his class from Chicago law school and clerked for the Supreme Court. You think he would be wasting his time with church duties in his 80s if he had any doubts about whether the church was true? And what about Nelson? The guy practically invented heart surgery. And then there are the apologists. John Gee is an Egyptologist and he has no problems with the Book of Abraham. And Dan Peterson? Why, the man is pretty much Zelph reincarnated. He eats people like you for breakfast and then &*!#ts them out in the afternoon just for kicks. So, seriously Bob, what you got huh? Do you seriously think you are smarter than these people?

And what is this so called evidence you have been looking at? Do you think science is really going to prove something to you? Ever heard of Thomas Kuhn and paradigm shifts, Phenomenology, Positivism, [insert more big and imposing words here that no one outside of college philosophy departments gives an aerial intercourse about] and about all the evils of empiricism? All of these folks have used lots of big words (and citations to each other) to fundamentally destroy any hope that the so-called "scientific method" can ever lead to "truth" in a metaphysical sense. Please go read all this stuff until your head is spinning and you (like Descarte) have the urge to go lock yourself in a room so you can figure out if you actually know anything or if anything is actually real or what the meaning of "is" is . . . but I digress. Anyway, once you have been humbled by this exercise and reminded of science's utter inability to teach you anything of eternal significance, then you will be left with your gut and that is what is important. Remember all those warm and fuzzy feelings you once had in church or reading scriptures? Remember Moroni 10:4? That is all that matters. Once you repent of your stupid and prideful notion that somehow your head is better at figuring out truth than your gut (oops, I meant to say the spirit but that bastard Cicero intervened), then you will be ready to return. Remember, faith is the first principle of the Gospel [actually loyalty and obedience to priesthood authority comes first but I again digress . . . dammit stop digressing Cicero]. Faith is hope in things that are NOT SEEN remember? Why are you paying so much attention to things you can see Bob? The answer, of course, is pride. Your pride has lead you to become a natural man and an enemy of God and worthy of whatever shunning you have incurred. You've taken up with Satan so you're supposed to be miserable remember? I'll do my utmost to make sure you remember that because I have the priesthood and am therefore under oath and covenant to call you to repentance wherever you may be (even on a chat board littered with bitter apostates who obviously have no life).

I repeat Bob, the problem is you not the Church. You're a prideful man that has been fooled to think that the philosophies of man have any chance at arriving at so-called truth. So Bob, what do you want to believe? Obviously you must want to hook up with prostitutes or take up with sodomites like Paul O or someone must have offended you at church or you are just too lazy to do callings anymore or too greedy to pay tithing, etc. So what is it Bob? What's your problem? Dude, I have achieved levels of comprehension that you can only dream of so I can see right through all your crap to see you for what you are . . . a pathetic shell of a man that deserves no respect whatsoever. Until you repent of your ways you will receive no common courtesy from me because you are now less than human and so I will treat anything you say with utter contempt. You are in fact my enemy and we are at war remember? Expect to be treated accordingly.

Thanks,
Wade/Pahoran/Selek/Droopy

[_Drifting]

They could start by opening the books, then we could go from there.

The books are open.

So you can provide the link to where we can find them...right...?

[_Yoda]

Worlds without end. That will never happen.

Nightlion, please explain this further. If you believe in Joseph Smith as a true prophet, then don't you believe in the King Follet Sermon and the plan of savlataion? Do you believe that those who do meet their salvation will become gods and goddesses and that there are, indeed "worlds without end"?

What, exactly, did you mean by your statement?

Or, were you referring to the fact that Mormons following the LDS Church of today will never reach that status?

[_LDSToronto]

Bob -

I've been thinking of a thesis, of sorts, regarding the LDS church and it's members, and I think it is related to your post.

I agree with what you have posted concerning fraudulent beginnings and a succesion of immoral leadership, but I think the decline of the LDS church ought to be shouldered, in good part, by the members of the church. When I joined the church, members took much pride in their special nature - "we are a peculiar people" was a common refrain that I heard for the better part of 10-15 years. In contrast, today's Mormon wants to be just like everyone else. Look at the 'I am a Mormon' campaign, and the New Order/MIddle-Way Mormon movement; Saints no longer desire peculiarity, they desire acceptance and in order to gain that acceptance, have turfed many of the things that make them Mormon.

Thus, my thesis is that the decline of the Mormon church is as much a function of the shame members feel for their religion and their inability or lack of desire to stand up for the peculiar teachings of the past.

H.

[_Philo Sofee]

What is intellectually dishonest is the careful selection year in and year out of only a specific group of scriptures within the scriptures to continually write and comment and teach on and present THAT as God's truth he wants us to know for these last days, all the while ignoring the obvious glaring problems with all else.

There are no verses which hurt the LDS Church. If there were, you would have given an example.

all the while ignoring the obvious glaring problems with all else.

Again, no examples.

Hey porridge for brains, re-read what i wrote. I said what is intellectually dishonest is the careful selection of verses ignoring ones they don't like, and then saying that their selection is the entire truth of Jesus. The church does not teach the entire scriptures each year, how can it? So it selects, usually picking out the ones that even kindergartners can figure out without the help of the manuals or teachers. But they then pretend like this is the full mind and will and matter of God along with their interpretation of course, and wala! You believe their view or you are in apostasy. It's stupid beyond dumb how the church thinks and wants to brainwash you into their carefully selected paradigm. The LDS church accepting the Old Testament are all the verses that hurt them. It's an ancient book written by the old geezers of the desert with an iron age mentality who couldn't think beyond God riding in a chariot as his greatest weapon. Their logic is the logic of an imbecile, their morality that of the Egyptians. It's dated, wrong, horribly immoral (God doing all that killing is atrocious morally). To accept that is tantamount to shooting yourself in the heart.

[_sansfoy]

What is intellectually dishonest is the careful selection year in and year out of only a specific group of scriptures within the scriptures to continually write and comment and teach on and present THAT as God's truth he wants us to know for these last days, all the while ignoring the obvious glaring problems with all else.

There are no verses which hurt the LDS Church. If there were, you would have given an example.

After all this time you need them pointed out? Couldn't you make this kind of list yourself based on past conversations with skeptics? Okay, then, here are a few.

D&C 132 versus the Book of Mormon proscription of polygamy. Elephants and honeybees in Ether. Alma 7:10 which claims Jesus was born in Jerusalem. Alma 11:44, among other verses, which takes a non-LDS, trinitarian view of the godhead. And that's just off the top of my head. There are dozens of self-serving verses in D&C, the way Mormons take Genesis literally, the way Mormonism (and other Christian churches, for that matter) directly contradict statements by Jesus in the New Testament.

If you stumble across one of these verses in isolation, a skilled gospel doctrine teacher can deflect, ignore, or apologize them, but taken in total a conservative belief in Mormonism is built upon sand.

[_Tobin]

Worlds without end. That will never happen.

Nightlion, please explain this further. If you believe in Joseph Smith as a true prophet, then don't you believe in the King Follet Sermon and the plan of savlataion? Do you believe that those who do meet their salvation will become gods and goddesses and that there are, indeed "worlds without end"?

What, exactly, did you mean by your statement?

Or, were you referring to the fact that Mormons following the LDS Church of today will never reach that status?

I don't know where Nightlion stands, but I certainly don't believe men or women can be Gods or Goddesses. I think it all stems from people misunderstanding and misconstruing the King Follet Sermon and the plan of salvation. I also believe Mormons greatly sin by teaching such things and when they do so they do so in solemn mockery of God, ignorant arrogance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and it is the root of other terrible and pernicious false doctrines in the LDS Church.

The King Follet Sermon merely points out God the Father lived on an alien world billions of years ago. That he was like Christ and saved his generations. This actually makes the Mormon version of God very appealing. We know the universe is ~14.6 billion years old and it is very plausible that any intelligent life that arose billions of years ago would have advanced to a point where they would have characteristics that we would consider God or God-like. It also leads one to the understanding that this isn't the only world that a savior comes to, but this process is repeated eternally and throughout the universe on many different worlds.

The plan of salvation helps make this clear. When we become Celestial beings we will assist in the forming of intelligences (I think of them as A.I. programs) into spirits (giving them a separate form - some type of energy being). We will do this under the direction of God, but that will not make us Gods. In fact, each of our spirits were formed that way. Not literally by God the Father, but by countless Celestial beings. The only begotten of the Father was Jesus Christ and that phrase should be understood that way.

[_Philo Sofee]

And, of course, all of this stuff in the King Follette Discourse is given without the slightest shred of minimal evidence in any regard whatsoever. We are told that we must simply accept and believe....accept and believe......have faith in our words brethren, accept and believe. Notice, no one ever says anymore to think about something, to ask a question or two, to possibly muse about things in a slightly different light. Were you to actually disagree with the teacher in church it would probably shock half the class, and dismay the other half. Pretty soon the good ole Stake President would be trottin his fat butt into the room to sit by you and hold your hand and make sure you don't ruffle feathers or disturb the still waters of the sweet spirit filled tranquility of the brain-dead.