Vogel's new video response on Book of Mormon and Masonry

[Shulem]

The choice to be reductive or not is probably a personality-driven preference.

I love to simplify matters down to a simple equation:

Joe = Thief



That's the key

[Kishkumen]

I love to simplify matters down to a simple equation:

Joe = Thief



That's the key

[Shulem]

I love to simplify matters down to a simple equation:

Joe = Thief



That's the key

Well, Mr. rolling-eyes, did he or did he not steal Masonic secret rituals and incorporate them into his RESTORED version of the Adamic Endowment? Yes, Joe stole those rituals because he's a thief and a wife snatcher (no pun intended). And it was done under the guise of cloak and dagger within the private rooms of the Nauvoo temple. And anyone who revealed those secrets to the world was worthy of death and subject to eternal damnation!

Now, bow your head and agree with me.

[Kishkumen]

Masonry provided the basic ritual lexicon for numerous initiation rites in dozens of esoteric communities. Only a polemicist would call this “stealing” from the Masons.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Masonry provided the basic ritual lexicon for numerous initiation rites in dozens of esoteric communities. Only a polemicist would call this “stealing” from the Masons.

You know it's a shame that Joseph only "borrowed" the rituals from the Masons. The church would have been much better off if Joseph had tried to emulate the way the Masonic Lodges spend most of their money, time and energy on numerous charitable organizations, hospitals, foodbanks, scholarships and community projects.

Just think how the church would be today if there were no temples with Masonic rites. Instead, just a church whose main goal is to contribute several billion dollars every single year to ease suffering and make the world a better place. One can always dream.

[Kishkumen]

You know it's a shame that Joseph only "borrowed" the rituals from the Masons. The church would have been much better off if Joseph had tried to emulate the way the Masonic Lodges spend most of their money, time and energy on numerous charitable organizations, hospitals, foodbanks, scholarships and community projects.

Just think how the church would be today if there were no temples with Masonic rites. Instead, just a church whose main goal is to contribute several billion dollars every single year to ease suffering and make the world a better place. One can always dream.

Of course, the temple isn’t the problem. Masons do the rituals and the charity. Obviously the rituals aren’t the problem.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

You know it's a shame that Joseph only "borrowed" the rituals from the Masons. The church would have been much better off if Joseph had tried to emulate the way the Masonic Lodges spend most of their money, time and energy on numerous charitable organizations, hospitals, foodbanks, scholarships and community projects.

Just think how the church would be today if there were no temples with Masonic rites. Instead, just a church whose main goal is to contribute several billion dollars every single year to ease suffering and make the world a better place. One can always dream.

Of course, the temple isn’t the problem. Masons do the rituals and the charity. Obviously the rituals aren’t the problem.

Agreed. Somewhere along the way, rituals (and the trappings) became much more important to the church. Where your treasure is there is your heart.

[Kishkumen]

Agreed. Somewhere along the way, rituals (and the trappings) became much more important to the church. Where your treasure is there is your heart.

I think it is more the case that social conservatism became more important to them than being Christlike.

[Dr Exiled]

Well, then there are the loyalty oaths contained therein, pledging oneself to the church over everything else, and there used to be the oath to get even with those who killed Joseph Smith. There is the push for obedience uber alles, still, to the suits. Sure, that plus right-wing ideology repeated over and over can lead to September 11, 1857. It can also lead to Stalin and Mao like societies on the left.

I think the obedience over reason was and is always the problem.

[Kishkumen]

Yeah, I am not defending Brighamite LDSism, which pushed the evidence on obedience into overdrive, but that doesn’t necessarily apply in the same way to the early endowment or the whole phenomenon of early Mormon temples.