lot of nay sayers here. What the heck, go there for a laugh. Apart from scientology ,mormonism and is probably the most transparent and most obvious hoax among the big religions. The story about the how Joseph Smith is almost laughable, I have never read about a more obvious huckster. No thinking man can believe in that nonsense, I challenge anyone to believe in the stories in the Book of mormon (and esp D&C) with a straight face.
Pick up Fawn Brodies book on the subject matter. Its an amazing story about the biggest huckster and pathological liar I have ever heard of. Hats of to the chap!
Of course it’s not, but why not waste a perfectly good opportunity to mention that there is nothing more expensive than a free book, especially by the Mormons.
I discussed this in your other thread. To add to what I said there: It’s just human nature. Any persecuted minority (or minority that deems itself persecuted) that then becomes a majority suddenly a) feels the need to flex its muscles – not in a bad way necessarily, but often in a way that is not understanding of others in the now-minority, and b) interprets any animosity towards the muscle-flexing as the aforementioned persecution.
Mormons are far from unique in this regard. I’ve seen this in political parties, social groups, history, my own personal history (the first time I was in a majority-geek setting we… did not always behave in a very understanding way towards the non-geeks. I’m ashamed of that now, but anyway, it illustrates the point).
Leaving aside the excluded middle here, how is this different from any religion that makes fantastic or supernatural claims?
I believe I’ve heard pretty much the same argument about Christianity from some christians. Jesus either really is the son of god and everything he says is true, or he’s a whacko guy who’d be off his meds if they had meds for such things back then. In that case, I believe they were arguing for Christianity with this line, whereas you appear to be arguing against Mormonism.
But it is worth mentioning that LDS prophets and apostles have repeatedly reinforced this “excluded middle”. ITR C is paraphrasing Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Joseph Fielding Smith, and Gordon B Hinkley.
And then, if you select ‘chosen by God’, you then need to evaluate which of the 80 or so branches of Mormonism is the ‘One True Correct’ Church that carries on with Joseph Smith’s calling.
Clearly, the current ‘home office’ in Salt Lake City has changed, modified, emphasized and de-emphasized various of Joseph Smith’s words. And frequently, when they do that, we see another schism in the church, the folks that want to stick with what Smith said stick together and break away from the folks that are once again, changing something. Assuming Joseph Smith was called upon by God, I would have the gravest doubts about the Salt Lake City church’s standing in the sight of God, despite their being the largest extant branch today.
Granted, some of the earliest splinters no longer exist, and I am deeply concerned one of them may have been the one true Mormon religion, what a shame for all the Mormons, to have been sooooo close, and then to have let the glory slip through their fingers.
Anyone considering a switch to Mormonism, URGENTLY needs to evaluate ALL the branches of this church. Clearly, being biggest is no sign of correctness, considering the enormous changes the Salt Lake City branch has wrought, I can scarcely imagine them to be, in fact, the correct implementation of Joseph Smith’s church.
Investigate, investigate, investigate!
If The Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times is the one correct church, and you have picked The Church of the New Covenant of Christ, obviously, you have displeased God, mightily, and the consequences for your soul will be grave.
And any church that accepts polygyny to be the “New and Everlasting Covenant” has rejected the teachings in the Book of Mormon, which forbids polygyny and claims to be the Fullness of the Gospel (thus any major gospel doctrine not endorsed by the BoM is not part of the BoM gospel).
And any church that rejects polygny and denies that it is the “New and Everlasting Covenant” has rejected the revelations of the prophet Joseph Smith, specifically Doctrine and Covenants section 132.
You will never find a church that truly believes both Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.
Unfortunately, there aren’t any formal splinter churches which happened after the first edition of the Book of Mormon was printed in 1830, where God and Jesus are the same, but before it was revised in 1835(?) for them to be separate individuals.
None of this is meaningless for never-Mormons, but when you grew up going to church several days a week, as well as taking seminary daily in junior and senior high school, and everyone is always bragging that We Have The Truth, The Whole Truth and it’s Always Been This Way[sup]TM[/sup], then it comes as a surprise to find out that Mormonism was made up and pulled out of Joseph Smith’s ass as he went along.
I would think it obvious that there are millions of people and many churches that consider themselves Christian but have an opinion about which portions of the gospel and church tradition are valid that differ widely from orthodox Christianity. One could be a Christian while believing most of John’s gospel to be invalid, for instance. However, I’m not aware of any individual or church that accepts Nephi but not Alma. The Book of Mormon is an all-or-nothing proposition.
I don’t have much of substance to add to this thread, but it jarred me a little when you wrote:
Bolding mine.
I know you didn’t mean it this way so please understand that I’m not castigating you, but declaring that everyone has a spiritual side comes off a bit presumptuous as it is something no one could possibly know. I don’t have a spiritual side, at all, and I certainly consider myself a member of ‘everyone’.
As far as whether or not you should become a Mormon, why not? If you feel the faith calling you and the idea of belonging to such an organization gives you comfort, who’s to say it’s wrong for you? Many find comfort and fulfillment in Mormonism, just as many find the same in faiths of all stripes and doctrines. I don’t see a significant difference between the proposals and outcomes of Mormonism, Protestantism, Catholicism, or any other flavor of Christianity. Mormonism is just a slightly novel slant on the same illogic, anti-intellectualism, fear-mongering, racism, theistic colonialism, and opportunism that so-called mainstream Christianity has profited from greatly for centuries.
If you’re wired with a strong desire for community and camaraderie at a level you perceive to be deeper than, say, membership in a book club, it may as well be an organization you’re already inclined to feel good about.
I’m an atheist, and consider theistic faith to be harmful to humanity, and its followers pawns. However, I’m, perhaps selfishly, less concerned to see someone find contentment and quiet peace within their chosen faith, than those who self-righteously collude with its more aggressive element, haughtily wrapped in the trappings of faith, while actively seeking to destroy others in the promotion of hive-mind ignorance and subjugation.
Or in the alternative, come to the realisation that you are clearly wasting your frickin’ time, since if any church was the One True Church they’d hardly be some trivial sub-sect of a trivial sect of a trivial religion that such debate was even possible over.
For any given faith, there are a set of holy texts/tenets that people of that faith hold to be true. You can’t be a part of that faith without pretty solidly believing in those texts/tenets. What difference does it make that there are a bunch of different variations that use different subsets of books in the bible and elsewhere, all referred to under the heading of Christian, and this particular variation that uses, among its non-biblical material, uses these books?
It sounds like this boils down to “Don’t be a Mormon unless you believe what Mormons believe.” Which seems pretty self-evident, but, again, how is that any different for any other individual faith?
If you’re saying that the variations that exist in Christian groups makes it more palatable, I claim you’re just not being specific enough. Why not expand it to “Don’t join an Abrahamic faith unless you believe what [at least one] Abrahamic faith group believes.” There, now Mormons don’t sound so scary.
And aren’t there different subsets of belief within Mormanism as well? There are, at the very least, the splinter groups that still practice polygamy.
I don’t believe this is true. There a many Christians who don’t necessary believe that even the New Testament is a faxed copy of the word of god, let alone accept the Old Testament. The history of the Bible is well-known, and it’s common knowledge that the Gospels were not written until decades after Jesus died.
However, the Book of Mormon was supposed to have been translated by Joseph Smith through the power of God (via a magic “peep stone” he found while digging for buried treasure, but that’s not commonly discussed among the “faithful”) so you pretty much have to accept it all or not.
I remain amazed at how little of the Bible most (nearly all) contemporary ‘mainline’ US ‘Christians’ believe to be the Word of God.
It is this bizarre fact that makes such entities as Landover Baptist such stunning eye openers.
And another problem with this tepid acceptance of their ‘franchise agreement’ is that it seems every slight alteration in what is emphasized and what is ignored in the bible spawns yet another schism. How many denominations of Christianity are there now?
Supposedly, God is not the author of confusion (unlike Joseph Smith), and yet confusion reigns across the ‘Christian’ world regarding the applicability of His words. God commands (sorry, don’t have the chapter and verse handy) to keep all His scriptures, and to not add to them. This is the first edict ignored when ever a Bible reader encounters some inconvenient Biblical truth.
If you learn about what the LDS Church requires of its members in terms of testimony, you will see that it expects members to testify about Joseph Smith as a true prophet and the Church itself the sole legitimate church as a result of that. A mainline Christian church requires no such thing. My church, the Episcopal Church, is opening and welcome to those who are absolutely certain that the Jesus of the Gospels was who He said he was, to those who waver back and forth, and to those who do not believe but are in the process of investigating. The LDS Church is not. There is a world of difference between the two.