BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: Authorities enter Eldorado-area temple (Fundamentalist LDS cult)

Local and state officials entered the temple of a secretive polygamist sect late Saturday, said lawmen blockading the road to the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado.

The action comes hours after local prosecutors said officials were preparing for the worst because a group of FLDS members were resisting efforts to search the structure.

The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and Schleicher County sheriff’s deputy confirmed that officials have entered the temple but said they had no word on whether anything occurred in the effort.

The incursion into the temple caps the three-day saga of the state’s Child Protective Services agency removing at least 183 women and children from the YFZ Ranch since Friday afternoon. Eighteen girls have been placed in state custody since a 16-year-old told authorities she was married to a 50-year-old man and had given birth to his child.

Saturday evening, ambulances were brought in, said Allison Palmer, who as first assistant 51st District attorney, would prosecute any felony crimes uncovered as part of the investigation inside the compound.

“In preparing for entry to the temple, law enforcement is preparing for the worst,” Palmer said Saturday evening. They want to have “medical personnel on hand in case this were to go in a way that no one wants.”

Apparently as a result of action Saturday night at the ranch, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday, a Schleicher County school bus unloaded another group of at least a dozen more women and children from the compound.

Although members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, have provided varying degrees of cooperation to the sheriff’s deputies and Texas Rangers searching the compound, all cooperation stopped once authorities tried to search the gleaming white temple that towers over the West Texas scrub, Palmer said.

“There may be those who would oppose (entry) by placing themselves between law enforcement and the place of worship,” Palmer said Saturday afternoon. “If an agreement cannot be reached … law enforcement will have to — as gently and peaceably as possible — make entry into that place.”

Sect members consider the temple, dedicated by then-leader of the sect Warren Jeffs in January 2005 and finished many months later, off-limits to those who are not FLDS members, said Palmer, who prosecutes felony cases in Schleicher County.

Palmer said she didn’t know the size or makeup of the group inside the temple.

The earlier refusal to provide access was even more disconcerting because CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl or her roughly 8-month-old baby among the dozens removed from the compound, Palmer said.

“Anytime someone says, ‘Don’t look here,’” she said, “it makes you concerned that’s exactly where you need to look.”

The girl told authorities in two separate phone calls a day apart that she was married to a 50-year-old man, Dale Barlow, who had fathered her child, Palmer said.

The joint raid included the Texas Rangers, CPS, Schleicher County and Tom Green County sheriff’s deputies and game wardens from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.

Although CPS and Department of Public Safety officials have described the compound’s residents as cooperative, Palmer disagreed.

Authorities removed 52 children Friday afternoon and 131 women and children overnight Friday. About 40 of the children are boys, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

No further children have been taken into state custody since Friday, when 18 girls were judged to have been abused or be at imminent risk for abuse. CPS has found foster homes for the girls, Meisner said, and will place them after concluding its investigation.

Meisner declined to comment on the fate of the 119 other children and said authorities were still searching the ranch for others Saturday evening.

“They’re in the process of looking,” she said. “They’re literally about halfway through.”

You and others want to have your worldly opinion that is fine.

I have no opinion.

I DO, hoewever, happen to HAVE what the BIBLE warns about organizations such as the LDS bunch:

NIV Acts 6:3-5
3. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them
4. and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."
5. This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism.

NIV Acts 11:19-26
19. Now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews.
20. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.
21. The Lord's hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.
22. News of this reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.
23. When he arrived and saw the evidence of the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.
24. He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.
25. Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,
26. and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

NIV Acts 13:12
When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.

NIV Acts 17:16-19
16. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
17. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
18. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
19. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?"

NIV Acts 18:11
So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.

NIV Romans 6:17
But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

NIV Romans 12:6-7
6. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.
7. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach;

NIV Romans 15:4
For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

NIV Romans 16:17
I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.

NIV 1 Corinthians 4:17
For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

NIV 1 Corinthians 11:1-2
1. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.
2. I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you.

NIV Ephesians 4:14
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.

NIV 2 Thessalonians 2:15
So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

NIV 2 Thessalonians 3:6
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.

NIV 1 Timothy 1:3-4
3. As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer
4. nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work--which is by faith.

NIV 1 Timothy 2:7
And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle--I am telling the truth, I am not lying--and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.

NIV 1 Timothy 4:6
If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed.

NIV 1 Timothy 4:11-13
11. Command and teach these things.
12. Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.
13. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.

NIV 2 Timothy 1:13
What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.

NIV 2 Timothy 2:2
And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.

NIV 2 Timothy 3:10-11
10. You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance,
11. persecutions, sufferings--what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.

NIV Hebrews 13:8-9
8. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
9. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them.

NIV 2 John 1:10
If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him.

NIV Titus 2:1
You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.

...if polygamy ever becomes legal in the US, then they will pick up where they left off.... There, fixed it for you.

Wrong. The kind of polygamy practiced by the FLDS is technically legal, unless the "spiritual" spouse is either a minor or non-consenting adult.

Marriage laws have been so watered down in the last century that a man can have 100 wives as long as he does not attempt to get a marriage license for more than one at a time.

The LDS Church is stuck between a rock and a hard place. They know it would be suicide for their religion if they suddenly allowed their members to "practice polygamy", but they can't repudiate it, since polygamy is a central doctrine of the LDS Church and is central to their doctrine of "eternal progression" where good Mormons will someday take their harems into heaven and procreate billions of spirit children to populate a planet in which the population of those planets will refer to them as their "Heavenly Father".

But even if polygamy were legalized (which it technically is) the Utah LDS Church is not going to be getting any revelations allowing the practice to begin again.

You better believe it. If it wasn't for the evil that joey inflicted on this country, those 11, 12, 13, 14 and on up year old girls would not be raped and abused by those who followed the prophet. Look into those faces 7, those are the fruits of you prophet.

Someone mention FRUITS???

2 Nephi 3:12

Wherefore, the fruit of thy loins write; and the fruit of thy loins of Judah shall write; and that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins, and also that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins of Judah, shall grow together,

2 Nephi 3:18 And the Lord said unto me also: I will raise up unto the fruit of thy loins; and I will make for him a spokesman. And I, behold, I will give unto him that he shall write the writing of the fruit of thy loins, unto the fruit of thy loins; and the spokesman of thy loins shall declare it.

Joseph Smith Translation Gen. 50: 27 Thus saith the Lord God of my fathers unto me, A choice seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins, and he shall be esteemed highly among the fruit of thy loins; and unto him will I give commandment that he shall do a work for the fruit of thy loins, his brethren.

Joseph Smith Translation Gen. 50: 31 Wherefore the fruit of thy loins shall write, and the fruit of thy loins of Judah shall write; and that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins, and also that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins of Judah, shall grow together

After all that raking me over the coals the main point was Critical Thinking was dismissed from this forum for it would mean being responsible for our words!

IMHO, a repeating pattern is not on accident...

I have yet to see where anyone except possibly Resty has dismissed critical thinking. Critical thinking involves a pattern of logic where one is open to the belief that they might be wrong and to do so they employ certain methods to differentiate the truth from their biases.

In an attempt to do this, I have asked several questions (and I might point out that a question is not "bashing" or criticism) and have not received answers on ANY of them. But, I will post some of them again to see if any Mormons would like to address them:

1. If there is no Trinity, it that follows that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit MIGHT NOT always be of One Mind; should a division arise, Who would you believe? (And to forestall any attempts to turn this question around, this question CANNOT be asked of non-Mormons as our belief in the Trinity renders it a moot point.)

2. Why did the religion that Mormons claim the Israelites brought to America fail? What happened in the 5th Century A.D. that removed any evidence that it EVER existed?

3. What happened to the gold plates and decoding devices? How were they lost? Why did Smith place no importance on protecting them?

4. And finally (and I admit I have not asked this before), why are there "secret" Temple ceremonies? Why won't you say what happens there? NO other religion that considers itself to be in the Judeo-Christian traditition hides fundamental tenets of their faith until after a person becomes a member. (And don't get the bright idea to talk about the Jewish High Priest crawling on his belly into the Holy of Holies, there was a prohibition against all Jews but him doing this AND what was done was not a secret.)

Please, if you wish to partake in critical thinking as you claim, answer these questions.

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