Top 3 arguments for and against the church

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hello,

Lemme me see... I'll take a crack at this.

Top Three Arguments for the Mormon Church:

1) The culture of the Mormon church creates a sense of family, community, and belonging that most of its adherents appreciate.

2) The Mormon lifestyle, if properly applied, should make good people better, and bad people not as bad.

3) The Mormon ideology, if believed and embraced can give the adherent a sense of purpose and identity in this existence. That's a calming and powerful thing to possess.

Top Three Arguments against the Mormon Church:

1) Joseph Smith couldn't translate the meaning of a dog wagging its tail, sitting in front of a Thanksgiving dinner, if his life depended on it.

2) The Book of Mormon is clearly a fraud.

3) The Mormon Church's corporate behavior, and closed books, clearly show where its interests lie; that it is more a business model heart-selling an idea and managing is vast business assets. It is an industry unto itself. That's not a church.

V/R
Dr. CamNC4Me

[_Darth J]

Hello,

Lemme me see... I'll take a crack at this.

Top Three Arguments for the Mormon Church:

1) The culture of the Mormon church creates a sense of family, community, and belonging that most of its adherents appreciate.

2) The Mormon lifestyle, if properly applied, should make good people better, and bad people not as bad.

3) The Mormon ideology, if believed and embraced can give the adherent a sense of purpose and identity in this existence. That's a calming and powerful thing to possess.

Top Three Arguments against the Mormon Church:

1) Joseph Smith couldn't translate the meaning of a dog wagging its tail, sitting in front of a Thanksgiving dinner, if his life depended on it.

2) The Book of Mormon is clearly a fraud.

3) The Mormon Church's corporate behavior, and closed books, clearly show where its interests lie; that it is more a business model heart-selling an idea and managing is vast business assets. It is an industry unto itself. That's not a church.

V/R
Dr. CamNC4Me

I agree with Dr. Cam's 1-3 For and #3 Against. My #1 and #2 against would be:

1. General Authorities do not prophesy, see, or reveal anything. Nor do they have much, if anything, that is particularly interesting or inspiring to say. They simply churn out a mixture of good common sense advice (like living within your means and being prepared for disasters), homilies about proper LDS social conformity, and "pray, pay, and obey." LDS internet defenders continually object to the last three, but that objection does not invalidate the "pray/pay/obey" formula permeating LDS messages. Reading through conference talks and church publications bears this out. Number 1 here would include the obsessive micromanaging of members' lives that faithful LDS take for granted---David A. Bednar's telling everyone what video games to play and applauding a kid who ditched his girlfriend because she had more than one earring in each ear being prime examples. In other words, being neurotic about new and exciting sins in the most prosaic aspects of daily life instead of having something relevant or substantive to say.

2. The Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and Doctrine and Covenants are a combination of 19th-century Bible fanfic and conveniently self-serving "revelations" about Joseph Smith (church members commanded to invest in the Nauvoo House so Joseph has a nice big house to live in, Emma has to accept polygamy or be destroyed, purported ancient prophets prophesied the advent of Joseph Smith, etc.).

The official Correlation Committee faith-promoting narrative having only a tangential relationship to the actual history of Mormonism would be my #4. My #5 would be the rampant plagiarism of Freemasonry in the temple endowment supposedly being the signs and tokens to get past the angels who are guarding heaven.

[_Joseph]

Not to mention his claim to have seen even more visions than Joseph, including the devil in the form of a jackass.

********************************

And I thought I was doing well when I saw a Jackass in the form of George W. Bush.

[_why me]

Quoting Wikipedia because I can't link to a physical printed book (EMD = Early Mormon Documents)

John A. Clark letter, August 31, 1840 in EMD, 2: 271: "No matter where he [Martin Harris] went, he saw visions and supernatural appearances all around him. He told a gentleman in Palmyra, after one of his excursions to Pennsylvania, while the translation of the Book of Mormon was going on, that on the way he met the Lord Jesus Christ, who walked along by the side of him in the shape of a deer for two or three miles, talking with him as familiarly as one man talks with another." According to two Ohio newspapers, shortly after Harris arrived in Kirtland he began claiming to have "seen Jesus Christ and that he is the handsomest man he ever did see. He has also seen the Devil, whom he described as a very sleek haired fellow with four feet, and a head like that of a Jack-ass." Vogel,EMD 2: 271, note 32.

Yes, I just love these second or third hand accounts. But what we have first hand from him, seems to give him a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and what he experienced. And I would rather go by that. But I am sure that he told a man in Palmyra something.

[_Polygamy-Porter]

Not to mention his claim to have seen even more visions than Joseph, including the devil in the form of a jackass.

And Jesus in the form of a deer.

[_zeezrom]

Oh my goodness!

tears are flowing... haha

[_why me]

The greatest proof that the church is true is with the 11 witnesses that never gave up the fraud and in fact, some even gave their testimonies on their deathbeds in front of family. Their perservence firmly overshadows the exmormons on this forum because they never equated their spiritual experience to a warm fuzzy. Nor did they deny what they saw with their eyes and felt with their hands.

[_Darth J]

The greatest proof that the church is true is with the 11 witnesses that never gave up the fraud and in fact, some even gave their testimonies on their deathbeds in front of family. Their perservence firmly overshadows the exmormons on this forum because they never equated their spiritual experience to a warm fuzzy. Nor did they deny what they saw with their eyes and felt with their hands.

vs.

In 1838, Joseph Smith called the Three Witnesses Cowdery, Harris, and Whitmer "too mean to mention; and we had liked to have forgotten them." B.H. Roberts, ed. History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1905), 3: 232.

[_Ray A]

The greatest proof that the church is true is with the 11 witnesses that never gave up the fraud and in fact, some even gave their testimonies on their deathbeds in front of family. Their perservence firmly overshadows the exmormons on this forum because they never equated their spiritual experience to a warm fuzzy. Nor did they deny what they saw with their eyes and felt with their hands.

If that is the greatest proof that the Church is true, then you are standing on very shaky ground. Read what the Mormon prophets themselves have said, why me. How can they be the "greatest proof" when they themselves (among the three most important) all left the Church (with two returning later)?

[_Fence Sitter]

The greatest proof that the church is true is with the 11 witnesses that never gave up the fraud and in fact, some even gave their testimonies on their deathbeds in front of family. Their perservence firmly overshadows the exmormons on this forum because they never equated their spiritual experience to a warm fuzzy. Nor did they deny what they saw with their eyes and felt with their hands.

Your defense of the 11 witnesses reminds me of a Dallin Oaks talk in which he said

"When attacked by error, truth is better served by silence than by a bad argument."