Posted on 02/08/2007 2:31:51 PM PST by Plutarch
Ok. But I have no compelling reason whatsoever to believe a single word in the book of mormon. It has lost all, I mean ALL credibility. It's history is very recent and easily researched. It ia a complete and utter fraud, as is the D&C.
An ad like that would boomerang so hard, Romney would win all 50 states. People don't like other people's religion being attacked in such a heavy handed manor.
Actually the researching the Book of Mormon is a pretty interesting undertaking. When you get into the nitty-gritty details that is the one area that is actually very hard to dismiss.
Check out this "Novice" site. It will not be too time consuming, but you will have to be pretty creative to refute it.
http://www.the-book-of-mormon.com/
Interesting resource.
I'm not Mormon, and I'm not going to be, but I've done some reading up on Mormonism, and while I don't agree with many parts of it, I am equally disgusted by some of the anti-Mormon propaganda that has been spewed by some Protestants and Catholics.
Uhh, I may not be a Mormon, but I know Mormons consider the Bible to be scripture too. Are you suggesting that the scoffers are right about the Bible, but not the Book of Mormon? I don't think that's what you mean, but that seems to be what you are saying.
Never said "ad". This will come out in newspaper articles, on talk shows, etc. And don't be too sure that it would boomerang....the way people are feeling about islam now, the similarities will be emphasized....prophets, polygamy, etc.
Mitt has a very uphill row to hoe with evangelicals, what with the abortion stance and mormonism, and as I stated before, moderates will lean towards Guliani and McCain. I reiterate, If mitt is the nominee, we loose in 2008.
I do not believe that there are "so many Christian religions". I believe in the body of Christ. You need not belong to a religion. It is only faith in Jesus Christ that matters.
Although Joseph Smith said that God had pronounced the completed translation of the plates as published in 1830 "correct," many changes have been made in later editions. Besides thousands of corrections of poor grammar and awkward wording in the 1830 edition, other changes have been made to reflect subsequent changes in some of the fundamental doctrine of the church. For example, an early change in wording modified the 1830 edition's acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity, thus allowing Smith to introduce his later doctrine of multiple gods. A more recent change (1981) replaced "white" with "pure," apparently to reflect the change in the church's stance on the "curse" of the black race.
Joseph Smith said that the Book of Mormon contained the "fulness of the gospel." However, its teaching on many doctrinal subjects has been ignored or contradicted by the present LDS church, and many doctrines now said by the church to be essential are not even mentioned there. Examples are the church's position on the nature of God, the Virgin Birth, the Trinity, polygamy, Hell, priesthood, secret organizations, the nature of Heaven and salvation, temples, proxy ordinances for the dead, and many other matters.
Many of the basic historical notions found in the Book of Mormon had appeared in print already in 1825, just two years before Smith began producing the Book of Mormon, in a book called View of the Hebrews, by Ethan Smith (no relation) and published just a few miles from where Joseph Smith lived. A careful study of this obscure book led one LDS church official (the historian B. H. Roberts, 1857-1933) to confess that the evidence tended to show that the Book of Mormon was not an ancient record, but concocted by Joseph Smith himself, based on ideas he had read in the earlier book.
Many doctrines which were once taught by the LDS church, and held to be fundamental, essential and "eternal", have been abandoned. Whether we feel that the church was correct in abandoning them is not the point; rather, the point is that a church claiming to be the church of God takes one "everlasting" position at one time and the opposite position at another, all the time claiming to be proclaiming the word of God.
This page deals with the 3913 changes that the Mormon churc has accomplished. This website is filled with numerous examples of the evolving faith that the Mormon church promotes.
http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/3913intro.htm
I HAVE been studying the Mormon church for years. I am not hateful towards you, I'm only pointing out how the Mormon church conducts itself.
Notwithstanding Joseph Smith's firm denial, there are names in the Book of Mormon "derived from the Greek." For example, the name "Timothy" (3 Nephi 19:4) comes from the Greek language, and the name "Jonas" (found in the same verse) is the Greek name for Jonah. Moreover, the Greek words "Alpha" and "Omega" are found in 3 Nephi 9:18. It is evident also that they have been plagiarized from the New Testament, Revelation 21:6. (The New Testament, of course, was written in Greek.) It is interesting to note that Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie freely admitted that these words are from the Greek language: "ALPHA AND OMEGA.... These words, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, are used figuratively to teach the timelessness and eternal nature of our Lord's existence..." (Mormon Doctrine, 1979, p. 31)
More here...
http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no74.htm#THE%20PLAGIARISM%20QUESTION
More...A COVER-UP REVEALED... JOSEPH SMITH'S ATTEMPT TO SAVE THE BOOK OF MORMON
Deleting Jesus' name
http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no74.htm#THE%20PLAGIARISM%20QUESTION
The idea that the author of the Book of Mormon plagiarized from the New Testament is not new. In his book, Roughing It, page 110, Mark Twain made this observation concerning the Book of Mormon: "The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James's translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel — half modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity."
And I throw it back to you... I hold no animosity for you, personally. I try to refute your points. But, you chose to remain lost in the dark.
>>The Bible has so many discrepancies and has been scoffed at by many many people, but that doesn't diminish my faith in the bible as the holy word of God. Neither will yoru scoffing had a similar effect on my belief in the BOM.<<
You seem to think that there is a parity of evidence and history for the two. There isn't.
Not even close.
They don't belong in the same discussion any more than the Bible and the Koran belong in the same discussion. Education and prayer will reveal that.
I almost became a Mormon until I did some research.
Fascinating photo evidences on that page. It refutes claims against Mormonism that I either never heard or never took seriously, yet ignores those that CAN BE taken seriously.
It refutes straw men and red herrings while ignoring the weightier things. It is a site for potential converts that have not studied the REAL arguments against Mormonism and "proves" that those against Mormonism are wrong, yet to he who would actually look into it, no refutation of any REAL arguments against the whole house of cards is made. It is just ignored, and hope the reader is not aware of it.
>>I am equally disgusted by some of the anti-Mormon propaganda <<
Me too. It is only the "non-propaganda" arguments that I am interested in, just as it is only the "non-propaganda" arguments am interested in regarding Islam. It is not a place for hating people and trumping up charges. It is a place for sticking to and gleaning out truth from fiction.
One need not paint Hitler as a pedophile to make the case that he was filled with evil. One need not find "backwards" lyrics in some music to say it is evil. Doing so only damages ones case against that which they really SHOULD be against.
They do to me. My previous posts explains why my faith in them both exist.
Why would I want to read your propaganda, when you won't even bother to read or consider the numerous facts I have given to you?
I hope one day you will see the light.
I did read them, have read them and other sources many times, and no, I can't agree wtih you that they are facts. We will have to agree to disagree.
The site was narrowly focused on the Book of Mormon.
I have no idea what your criticisms of my faith are. I am sure that those can be addressed too, but I am not willing to get into a fight about it.
I don't know what your faith is.
I am merely pointing out some serious problems for mormonism for any person that is "searching the scriptures" to determine it's validity. It is literally in the same legue as the Koran. The aledged purpose for it's very existence is even the same as the Koran. Often Mormons give the exact same reasons for defending their "faith" against attack as muslims do. They claim knowledge but it is so narrow, and they have been so brainwashed into refusing to educate themselves on anything refuting it.
That is why I so much like the metalurgy example. It is lifted straight from the BOM, IN CONTEXT and a Mormon who knew somehting about which it spoke was able to use his God given mind to understand the book was dead wrong. This was the BEGINNING of discovery for him. This is also just the tip of the iceburg.
Ask a mormon sometime about the men dressed as quakers that live on the moon.
And don't get me started on what the Bible says we are to do with "prophets" whose prophesies turn out to be false.
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