Jim, I’m fascinated by your virtual disappearance since posting this thread. With all that’s been said here & posted to you, I would think you would have had more to say. Surely you knew the firestorm this thread would create. Now that views have been expressed, feelings shared directly towards you, have your views towards the situation changed?
But after you have been here a while longer, you may realize that Jim is a man of few words.
He early on answered an important question to clarify things. I've never seen him get into these discussions.
I don't think you will get him to change his mind, but perhaps he will take the time from his political activism and the approximently 18 hours a day he spends keeping this site running smoothly to answer you.
No, I didn't ping him. He is busy enough without having another unnecessary ping on his comments page and I am not speaking for him as I said above.
My best to you.
I hope you get your answer if that is what is deemed necessary.
Typical LDS re-shift. A spammer starts an anti-FR site. Jim addresses it head-on. Who does Reno believe to be the instigator? The anti-FR spammer? (Nope) Instead he puts the collar on Jim: "Surely you knew the firestorm this thread would create."
Instead of Reno holding the spammer site accountable, he blames Jim as the "creator" of a firestorm.
This is the perfect microcosm of what's been happening for 179 years. Before any Christian ever even knew of the word "Mormon," the founding vision of Joseph Smith was: "they [other sects/churches] were ALL wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were ALL corrupt" (from Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith-History 1:19).
This was never just left as Joseph Smith's opinion. A later generation of Mormons elected to enshrine this statement into the Mormon Scripture "Hall of Fame" -- they canonized it as God's opinion of all non-Mormon sects/churches/members.
LDS leaders then went on to press Christians that they all apostatized -- all, that is, except a 2,000-year-old apostle named John and three Nephite disciples even older than John (they said these people are still wandering the earth somewhere).
The original "anti" was Joseph Smith. He was "anti-Christian." He was against the Christian church, claiming they were wrong, 100% corrupt and embraced 100% putrid creeds. But what do Mormons do? They re-shift the focus. No, it's not Joseph Smith and his leaders who followed who were the protagonists raising up firestorms everywhere they went; 'twas these "antis."
That's been the Mormon narrative all along. It doesn't mean that Christians have never reacted badly in these exchanges. Some/many have. That's also part of history.
But we see in this thread a microcosm of the dynamics involved.