Wow, if that’s your mea culpa for arguing that polyandry was “unfounded” and then linking to a Mormon website that said the opposite, then you’ll go far in the Mormon church. They don’t believe in saying, “Oops, I was wrong” either.
As for polygamous marriages performed after 1890, your arguments don’t hold water. A second proclamation had to be issued in 1904 because the US Senate refused to seat Utah senator Reed Smoot, in part because Washington DC knew that Mormons were continuing to perform secret polygamous marriages!! So your argument is that the President of the Mormon church, living in Salt Lake City, had no idea what his subordinates were doing right under his nose while all of the political establishment in Washington DC knew exactly what was happening!
I won’t hold my breath for you to respond, since you seem to ignore posts that prove you wrong.
I’ll answer this in the form of witnessing. What I believe I got from God.
First God will NEVER share His glory with another, so if it is Mormor, JW, Islam, Wicca, Buddah etc, God will never share His Name with any title. God is above all and we are with Him as His children without religion.
But with that out of the way some of us are ready to evolve into getting their own planet, as ‘mother earth’ the living spiritual celestial being has her own planet - her womb and our home planet. The grand prise is to be a ‘mother earth’, to guide the children of the new planet inside us to also evolve into such beings. Yes there is a male counterpart. It is not a planet to rule over as is commonly thought of, but a planet of new beings that need love and nurturing as a mother may adore the child in her womb. The earth is the womb of ‘Mother Earth’ and we are Her children. Likewise that is what we will evolve to.
As such it is the women who will get the planet, not the men. From what I have gotten the men will interact with this new level of life through the woman.
Well, it sure looks like a gaffe, so I laughed. You managed to offend another ex-mo, but amused me. I love it when Mormons demonstrate publicly that nailing down doctrine is like nailing jello to a wall. You’ve shown that, during a time when a doctrine concerning the morality of owning a human being would have been very helpful, God Almighty was too busy making pronouncements about barley drinks being good for marrow growth. Nearly two centuries later, LDS apologists and the LDS newsroom are still trying to figure out what God Almighty was talking about re: barley drinks. And the prophets, apostles, apologists, and newsroom have gotten no closer to a consensus about the nature of the afterlife (when we become gods, will we get our own planet?) or the nature of God (was he once a mortal man on Kolob?).
April, I’m not going to get too involved with the stuff I don’t know about. But you’re completely wrong to say that energy drinks are not addictive/habit forming/whatever.
Caffeine IS an addictive drug. You CAN get physically dependent on it. In fact, MOST caffeine drinkers are addicted.
My mistake. That’s a great cite, once you scroll down the page:
I was wrong, it is a perfect, impeccable source and even more so since April R pointed it out.
[Jon Stewart]OK, Rhodes, April has just proved that beer is OK, that Brigham Young owned a brewery and meat isn’t a big deal. So what do you have to say about that now, smarty pants? Aren’t you the least bit embarrassed that a young convert has confounded your knowledge? That your careful reasoning was utterly destroyed in a three second google search?
Ooops. You are the one arguing that beer was not part of the Word of Wisdom and it was April R who has egg on her face.[/Jon Steward]
I’ve got this really cool button on my computer. It’s called a PgDn button, and apparently allows me to see what doesn’t fit in my screen when I pull up the first cite I find in a google search. Of course, I only use this when I’ve got more than two seconds, which isn’t always possible, and since truth is only relative, it doesn’t matter anyway.
We all know that things change, except for what doesn’t. The Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t always tell us why, but we can figure it out, unless we’re wrong, and then it was only because we guessed wrong, although some people say that they can never guess wrong. But, they are wrong about that, because they were talking only as men and not the official receivers of the truth. We know that because they told us, so this has to be right because they told us this when they were talking as official representatives and not as men.
Now, back to you, Rhodes. Are you or are you not going to refute this argument that beer was OK and that it wasn’t near beer, or are you going to to concede to April R that the Word of Wisdom allows real beer?
Since the original proposal was that it was near beer, it isn’t up to Rhodes to show that it wasn’t-it is up to the original claimant(s) to show evidence that it was.
edited to add-In other words, either go with “It was near beer” or go with “It was probably real beer, but the rules changed”, but picking both is a cop out.
Well, TokyoBayer is being facetious by drawing attention the fact that her own cite argues against her position. I don’t want to pick on April but she does have an unfortunate inability to admit she was wrong. I feel bad, because most of us former Mormons have been through these kind of debates numerous times before and she is just Googling this stuff for the first time. And she is making a bit of a hash of it, as you might expect for a first-timer.
But it’s hard to have sympathy for her when she won’t admit she’s made a mistake. And frankly, she seems unfamiliar with just about every topic we’ve raised. She may be better advised to try to digest some of these controversies and debates (even if she feels she must get all her information from pro-Mormon websites) before trying to answer questions from four or five life-long Mormons.
I didn’t say that. I said I obviously have trouble following the spirit of the law when I indulge in caffeinated drinks, because I shouldn’t because they are addictive, but there is no outright prohibition against caffeine.
And I am not purposefully ignoring posts Erdosain, I have addressed plenty that disagreed with me. I am just one person, I can’t address them all. You all already have all the answers anyway so why would you even pretend to listen to what I have to say? My husband and one of my friends said I should have given up a long time ago, but I didn’t because I thought it was worth the discussion. I you are going to nitpick that I didn’t give you enough attention I hope this was enough for you.
I admitted I was wrong plenty of times. Maybe you chose to ignore when I did so you could keep hammering the same points over and over again and continue to feel superior to me. I have been one of the few in this thread to concede when I was mistaken or needed to look further. I humbly bow down to your superior knowledge and embittered commentary. At least I didn’t shy away from learning more about the Church. I don’t ever choose to put my head in the sand and keep myself in the dark. Is your problem that I am not going to throw up my hands and just give in and say, that’s it, it’s too hard to believe I am just going to give up my testimony and my faith because you pointed some stuff out I didn’t know before. How weak do you think I am?
Ummm, was that too subtle? The original claimant is refusing to provide a serious cite despite repeated requests, and has asked for other to disprove a meaningless cite from a Mormon forum.
As she’s apparently conceded the argument, I’m just having some fun with typical Mormon apologists’ reasoning. The other former Mormons will understand the incomprehensible paragraph in my post, but google FAIR and LDS, and then try to read any of the articles.
This is something that us former Mormons are all to familiar with. Try to refute any of the sentences there. It simply can’t be done. To get specific about beer, this is what she first said the beer isn’t mentioned in the WofW.
We point out barley and what it means. So this is the response.
So, let’s tackle that one. Nope. It’s not near beer, it’s real beer. Then she goes off on
when pointed out that she hasn’t proven her assertion, this is the response.
We have a blatant “misspeak,” a cite which is simply another Mormon passing along a rumor he or she heard somewhere and now it’s our job to disprove that it was as likely for near-beer to be correct as beer. Which doesn’t matter anyway because the Gospel is true and I know it’s true because God told me, and I know that God is true because the Gospel is true. Any you guys are all meanies anyway. So why wasn’t that said in the first place? It would have made the argument go faster to just get to the “you guys are meanies” from the start.
At this point, all we can do is whimper in the corner, sobbing uncontrollably, and mutter “But fire trucks are red because that makes them more visible.”
See, that wasn’t too hard, was it? It’s often just easier to start off with “you guys are just meanies” rather than waste those precious seconds actually reading anything.
Oh, you did. I forgot about that. It’s OK to quit when you’re ahead. You did well.
We do listen. And we point out where you’re wrong. And, as an added bonus, where it’s easy to prove you’re wrong.
It certainly is worth the discussion for me. I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I finally saw the light, and it’s worth being reminded how I used to be.
I also have to thank you for starting off with the insults and trash talk, and then refusing to apologize for it.
My four-year-old doesn’t get the concept yet, that respect has to be earned. If you don’t want someone to be mean to you, don’t be mean to them first. Hopefully, she’ll get this concept by the time she’s in kindergarten.
That’s fine, don’t respect our views, but it’s looks petty to be pissy when what goes around comes around.
With all the negative press about posthumous baptisms, the missionaries that prowl my region, and all this talk about going abroad for mission work, I find it refreshing that you respect the belief systems of others and will presumably leave them to their own devices. I imagine studying cultural anthropology while adhereing to a religion which commands its members to convert others puts you in an awkward postition. I wish others who identify as Mormon would leave other cultures intact.
I honestly don’t know how to respond to this. Perhaps we have different ideas of what admitting being wrong is. That’s fine, you’ve made some vague blanket statements about how you still have a lot to learn. Fair enough. If I were proven spectacularly mistaken by my own cites, I would probably have the good grace to be a bit embarrassed, but to each their own. I won’t mention it again.
Anyway, let me clarify one point I feel is very important. I am not trying to undermine your faith nor do I expect you to throw up your hands and quit. I don’t want you to say “Oh, I was wrong and you guys were right and Mormonism is a fraud!”
What I do want is you to be familiar the basic facts of the topic we are discussing. And if not that, then willing to do a modicum of research and familiarize yourself. To your credit, you’ve done a bit of that, looking up Fanny Alger and the Word of Wisdom and so forth. But you also tend to make over-aggressive claims and then lose interest when we attempt to provide counter evidence.
Even as loaded and divisive a topic as this has certain facts. What we make of these facts will depend on our respective positions, but these facts are not in question. You may think them inconsequential or unimportant (in fact, I would expect you to) but they still exist.
Fact: Joseph Smith married at least 8 women who already had living husbands.
Fact: Joseph Smith married a 14-year-old girl and had a relationship (possibly marriage) with his 16 year-old live-in maid.
Fact: The Word of Wisdom did not originally prohibit all alcohol and even as late as 1900, some apostles were arguing for a beer exemption.
Fact: The Mormon Church performed illegal secret polygamous marriages in Salt Lake City long after the Manifesto of 1890.
I don’t expect these facts to change your mind, but I do expect that you’d be able to either acknowledge them or provide convincing evidence that they aren’t true.
Just another former Mormon popping into the thread. I left the church of my own decision when I was 17. I have many many Mormon friends still, and a majority of my family members are still very active in the church. I have no acrimony towards the church.
I don’t claim to be super knowledgeable about the church as I left at a fairly young age, before much was told to me. I did make it to the first (maybe even second?) level of priesthood.
I also went to the temple in Bellevue, WA to take part in a Baptism for the Dead. They took a big group of teen church members (I was 14 I think) there one day. I had no idea why we were going to the temple until we were there and they gave me a robe to change into. This was more likely due to my ADD though and not subterfuge by the church. My Mom says that she didn’t know that that’s what the trip to the temple was for though, so that’s pretty interesting to me.
TTYL