Why so many LDS threads?

08-May-2008 | Grig

[Grig]

I am posting this on behalf of many LDS freepers. They will post their own 'signature' to this in the comments below. --- Some of you have noticed lately a lot of LDS (ie: Mormon) threads here on FR. I'm going to tell you why.

For many years there have been several active LDS freepers here. We post to all the forums on relevant issues, and were happy to have a site where conservative values were so openly welcomed.

Those conservative values include faith in God, and freedom of religion. We fully respect the rights of all posters to express their opinions and views on religious matters, even when people choose to use those rights to express criticism of our own faith. We also support the ideas embodied in FR rules against religion bashing. There is no need for hostility and there should be no room for bigotry on FR. Every religion has it's miracles and mysteries. Every faith has things in it that are not or can not be proven, and things that run contrary to what secular science would have us believe. Someone mature and confident in their own faith generally doesn't feel the need to belittle the faith of others.

We have, to the best of our ability, conducted ourselves with civility and dignity. We do not feel that that respect has been returned by some posters (putting it mildly).

When Mormon missionaries were murdered, the moderators were kept busy pulling jubilant posts off the thread. When Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home, we contended for months with posters who appeared to be motivated by religious bigotry doing all they could to smear the family and accuse the father. Several posters openly admitted their religious motivation in opposing Mitt Romney and confessed that no matter how conservative any Mormon was, they would never vote for one for President of the USA. When the Pope died, I don't think any Mormon poster posted anything unkind, yet the thread about the passing of our President recently needed many comments removed.

Nearly every thread having any connection with Mormons, or Utah winds up being hijacked by anti-Mormon activists who copy and paste the same false accusations over and over even when it has been clearly and factually pointed out to them on multiple occasions that they are bearing false witness against our faith. Everything possible is done by these activists to make FR a hostile place for Mormons, and for at least some of them, bashing Mormonism is all they do here. Their most recent project is trying to blur the fact that the polygamous FLDS is a separate and distinct religion from ours, just as Lutherans are a separate and distinct religion from Catholicism.

In our opinion, such poster do a great disservice to FR and to their fellow freepers by spreading disinformation and promoting hostility towards a people known for walking the walk of conservative values.

Why the moderators here don't see the behavior of these anti-Mormon activists as religion bashing is a mystery to us, but it is the moderators call to make and we respect their right to do so. That doesn't mean we have to be passive however. We have all spent many hours refuting the accusations leveled at our faith, but these wind up buried deep in a flood of comments, effectively shouting us down.

Recently some of us have decided to take a more proactive approach. Rather than try to wrestle the pig into taking a bath, we are just going to hose it down. We will actively define our faith here rather than just respond to accusations.

So expect to see lots of Mormon threads, now and for as long as we see fit to keep posting them (although probably not as many as there are Catholic threads). They will be about our basic doctrines and responses to common accusations. If you want to know what our faith is about, read the articles we post. We will post them as open threads and I encourage you to compare the difference in tone and spirit between what we post and what our critics say.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

The constant bleating against paid theologians is tiresome.

I remember months back I stated that my father-in-law was a Southern Baptist Director of Missions, my brother-in-law is a preacher with a doctorate in Biblical Greek, and my pastor had just completed his doctorate.

The skills of these three fine men were ridiculed. And it was asked why two of them would get higher degrees of learning, did they do it for their own pride?

I patiently explained that they did it out of a personal conviction that to greater understand the truth of the Bible they are walking closer with God and as their roles as pastors, they hoped to draw others closer to God as well.

This ridicule and derision is an old tactic, Godzilla. I’m sorry that you were plagued in such a tiresome manner.

But, I thank you for exposing the truth for those that want to see it.

Yours in Christ,
PYW

[FastCoyote]

One of my (oft broken) rules is to never argue with crazy people. It really DOES NOT MATTER how many facts you present to DU, he will reject each and everyone of them. That’s why I gave up on him.

Besides, as I pointed out, DU’s disgust of paid clergy is contradicted by Joseph Smith’s “Revelation” that tithing was needed so he and Sidney Rigdon could feed at the trough in rather large fashion with a salary after their pecuniary debacle at Kirtland. Much of the Nauvoo land was later in Smith’s name, we know this because Emma and the Reformed church ended up with it after his death, so paid clergy wasn’t exactly abhorrent to the Patriarch. Those kinds of facts are pretty hard for DU to suppress, yet he will try.

Hey DU, I still can’t find an active link to the Kirtland ledger! Help me out!

[sevenbak]

Hi pray. It's interesting that you relate some of those doctrines as mentioned by Enoch with us not believing them. Not so. Yes, some are indeed mysteries, and some we hold beliefs with.

I'm interested though, how you reconcile Enoch’s plain and direct teaching of the preexistence of man with that of orthodox Christianity? Mormons are almost alone in that belief.

Here are some examples.

..... And every thing found in the world has been before and has passed before him and has been organized before him ...AII the creations Of the World have existed in each generation before they came to this world .All the souls of the children of men have been before they came down to the world formed before him in Heaven in the very likeness that they have in this world ...For all souls are prepared to eternity before the formation of the world.
And the Angel said to Enoch sit down and write All of the spirits of men and those who have not yet been born yet, the places which have been prepared for them . All things were prepared since before the foundation of the world” 2 Enoch 9:

“Enoch answered the people saying hear my children ,before anything was and before the whole creation took place, the Lord established the age of creation; and after that he made all of the creation both visible and invisible and after that he created man in his own image. He gave him eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to think with and a mind to council. I swear to you my children that before man was in the womb of his mother we were prepared, each individual and a place for each spirit that each should sojourn here in his proper time, that man might be tested in the balance ...” 2 Enoch 17:

” Enoch went to the Lord who taught him all about creation and his works... He saw matter unorganized before the creation...the council in heaven... He saw Satan aspire and get cast out to become the foundation of lower things, beyond which there ii great darkness and nothing”
2 Enoch 11:

” Then the angel Braboil said: Sit down and write all the spirits of men, all those who have not been born yet, and the places which have been prepared for them. All these things were prepared since before the foundation of the world. And I wrote down all the affairs of men. Secrets of Enoch 10: (Vaillant)

Further, and interesting little tidbit I came across recently....

Ancient Book of Enoch text quoted in Book of Mormon.

(From the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol.2, Ch.1, Pg.8)

A quotation from an Enoch text occurs in the thirteenth chapter of Helaman. “Ye have trusted in your riches,” Enoch tells the people. “Ye have not remembered the Lord in the day he gave you your riches.” (Cf. Helaman 13:33.) This is also Samuel the Lamanite speaking, an expert in the scriptures; he knew all about these things. He had access to the plates of brass and other records. And here Enoch speaks in a writing not discovered until 1888: “Ye have not remembered the Lord in the days he gave you your riches; ye have gone astray that your riches shall not remain, because you have done evil in everything. Cursed are you and cursed are your riches.”
NOTE: Nibley’s citation, above, raises three interesting issues:

1. The text discovery took place in 1888. The Book of Mormon provides the citation in 1830. If the author of the Book of Mormon was not an ancient historian, how did know this?

2. The Book of Mormon has been criticized for using New Testament language before New Testament times. But the New Testament abounds with quotations from Enoch and other ancient writers. When the New Testament and the Book of Mormon both quote (without attribution, in the ancient style) from lost, ancient writings, it's going to look like the Book of Mormon is (to quote mark Twain) “smouched from the New Testament, and no credit given.”

3. I claimed earlier that it can be proven that the Book of Mormon repeatedly flies in the face of the best knowledge and belief of the 1800s, only to be proven exactly right by subsequent discoveries. This is a prime example. No one would be so stupid in an 1800’s forgery as to expect a Bible-reading public not to recognize Bible phrases. But the ancient author of the Book of Mormon blythly cites his ancient sources (as Enoch, above) without attribution, thus ignorantly putting Joseph Smith's reputation in jeopardy.

[sevenbak]

As for the priesthood, we will have to agree to disagree. We understand that much differently.

No man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. Hebrews 5:4

Cheers.

[dmw]

Godzilla, DU’s slanderous lies about you is shameful, but as you already know, this kind of behavior is common among those who belong to cults. Mormons don’t have any problem telling lies, especially when it comes to defending their false religion. In fact, as we’ve learned on these Mormon threads, they are taught to lie for the sake of advancing their false religion. (See Mormon lies http://www.mrm.org/topics/evangelism-issues/ten-lies-i-told-a-mormon-missionary). It’s understandable that they would feel the need to lie, after all, their BOM is based on lies and the only way to defend a lie is to lie about it. How much more simple life would be for them if they just followed the Word of God.

By the way, even if you did get paid as a minister of the gospel, according the the scriptures, there is certainly nothing wrong with that. In 1 Timothy 5:17-18 it says, “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain, and “The worker deserves his wages”.

Here’s what the Bible has to say about people who are falsely accused from people like DU:

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matt. 5:11,12 NIV)

Godzilla, you are blessed!

On the other hand, the Bible doesn’t speak too kindly regarding liars and slanderers like what we’ve seen DU do:

(1 Corinthians 6:9-10 NIV) “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor *SLANDERERS* nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

(Revelation 21:7-8 NIV) “He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and *ALL LIARS*-their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

DU, something for you to think about.

[prayforpeaceofJerusalem]

Enoch 2 is not Scripture, not inspired, and not written by Enoch. It has many things in it which contradict the book called 1 Enoch, OT and NT. It has some things in it taken from the writings of Enoch, but horribly corrupted, and therefore, is a fraudulent document.
1 Enoch was kept as Canon by the Ethiopian Coptic Church from the beginning of the Church there, and the Essene’s used the same in their studies, with parts of many copies found in the Qumram caves, but not one whole book.

YHWH is the Father of the spirits of all flesh, as to being the Creator of them, in their kinds. The Head of each kind that was created to multiply was created with the seed within itself. The spirit of the kind causes the life of the kind to do what it was programmed to do; to multiply it’s own kind. We have, as it were, an “Adamhead” as to our kind, and in each of us dwells all the fulness of the same created “Adamhead”, bodily.
In Jesus Christ, all the fulness of the Living Spirit, YHWH, -the Godhead- dwells bodily.

In 1 Enoch, the OT and the NT, each soul to be born in Adam is seen as written in the Book of Life. In 1 Enoch, the OT, and the NT, all the persons who would come forth in Adam are not only written in the Book of Life, but their days -boundaries of time- and the details of their own bodies of flesh are written, even the numbers of their hairs are written in that book.
In Enoch, the OT and NT, the names can get blotted out of that book, but never written in, for it is finished before the foundation of the world, and if one’s name is blotted out, there is no remedy for them having eternal life by any means, in the regeneration of all things. They will then be cast aways in the everlasting fire -the Abyss which Enoch saw- and will never be “metamorphosed” into the image of the son of God at the resurrection and or at the rapture, and will remain “worms that never die” in the Abyss, forever.

The only way to assure that one’s name is never blotted out of the Book of Life, after one comes to the age of accountability, is to be born again, in Christ, while one has their being intact. Un-accountable souls who die without having done good or evil -with understanding- belong to the LORD, who ransomed Adam by His once for all Atonement. Accountable souls are ransomed by their own freewill of choice and are led to Him by seeking Him who seeks them, first, by His Light that lights every man that comes into the world.

Because all in Adam were made to be sons of God, in Adam, every detail of their being in which they would come forth was written before the foundation of the world -with no corruption of parts caused by sin.
In the resurrection and regeneration there will be no corruption of parts, and all will receive the body they were written in the Book to have, before Adam fell and lost sonship and the indwelling Glory.
Because Jesus Atoned for all Adam, as Kinsman, then no person/soul born in Adam will be resurrected with any parts missing or corrupted, but if they refuse to seek the Light that lights every person who comes into the world while they have their being, or reject that Light, and follow lies, then they will be forever in the Adam body, -minus the Adam spirit which drives Adam to “be”- and will be cast away, into the Abyss, body and soul intact, and forever remain in that same stage, which is called the “undying worm”. For that, there is no remedy. They will never be metamorphosed into the beautiful and glorious image of the second and only living human being kind Son of God.

[sevenbak]

Do you adhere to the doctrine of the preexistence of man, as spoken of by Enoch and scripture?

[DelphiUser]

When was their (FARMS) Internet website set up – before or after they affiliated with Deserte Books or BYU ?

Before (that's why they had to move it...)

That came out of the mouth of your former President.

Which former president said FARMS was a church creation from the Beginning?

Doubt the founder of the organization was acting in a vacuum.

You can express your doubt all you want, you stated a fact that the organization was supported by the church from the beginning.

Put your victim card away.

Dang...

Incase you haven’t figured it out, this thread is in a Religion forum hosted by FR.

Actually, I got that, but thanks for checking to make sure.

Not that you don’t attack other religions.

I try really hard not to, but when you use a point of attack that is based on the falseness of your religion, it's hard not to be seen as attacking when all I am doing is telling the truth. I am not attacking and I can prove that, look at my history and find just one post where I have gone to thread about another religion and started telling them they are wrong, sinners, or Damned.

Nor are the forums here for unchallenged promotion of a specific religion over others.

Nor are they supposed to be for the unreasonable attack of a specific religion by those who disagree with it.

That doesn’t change what it is now does it.

So you are admitting that you were wrong and it didn't start as a church funded site?

Secondly, since you are changing the subject to FAIR vs FARMS/Maxwell,

Not intentionally, it was a slip on my part, and I beg your pardon.

they do so under a 501c3. Since FR is not a church, different IRS tax codes apply, so you logic crashes on that account.

Actually, a 501(c) covers most not for profits, not just Churches. (un-crash here)

And they (BYU/FARMS/Maxwell) pay them salaries to do so. The individuals are getting money to promote their religious views, so they are profiting from the spreading of Mormonism.

Wait, so your contention is that a Church owned university that actually makes money for the church, having a religious website, and that if they actually support the Church they believe in they are making money from the church and not the university? ROTFLOL!

So because they are profiting from spreading the cause of Mormonism they are exempt from filty lucre?

According to the Bible, "clergy" should be for free, no one should teach the gospel professionally. That does not mean no one should sell a religious book, or get paid to clean a church, or in this case get paid to run a web site. you can even get paid to do research, but teaching the love of Jesus, that should be from your heart and for free.

If you think that running a web site is for filthy lucre, I'd have to ask you to log off and go away, chuckle...

I find it humorous that you accuse non-Mormons who receive money for doing the same. AFAIAK, the Catholic (or any other church) can spend as much as they want, that is not corrupted as you make it out to be. People working in the church (including ministers) have the right to receive pay and support.

If it was just me thinking it, I wouldn't have bothered to comment, the Bible says so, I'm sure you'll agree with me on this, my opinion is irrelevant.

IMHO, God wants people to owe him their loyalty, not a church which is paying the bills.

Again, that's my opinion, it's worth every penny you are paying for it, maybe more.

If you disagree, then you need to look no further than your church to see the hypocrisy.

I do disagree, and my church is not hypocritical, my dad was a bishop for over ten years without getting paid one red cent, he had a day job...

The organization being discussed was FARMS/Maxwell – getting your acronyms mixed up.

I apologized for that earlier.

You were given the tool to find out in another post.

Your page was less than informative on if you were ever paid by a church to preach.

Keep living in your fantasy world DU. But obviously you haven’t figured that out yet.

And you in yours...

[SkyPilot]

Lurkers, Godzilla is a paid Theologian, he is paid to represent his church...

Delphi User

“A lie told often enough becomes truth.”

Vladimir Lenin.

[SkyPilot]

This is a lesson in mormonism, people caught in mormonism – especially multigenerational mormons – have a religious – domestic – heritage – pressure to believe in mormonism, no matter what the facts are. They will believe the lie because the consequences of the truth are too overwhelming due to the societal pressure.

That is the crux of why they refuse to believe the truth.

We were studying John Chapter 5 last night in a small group study with my church.

After Christ healed the man on the sabbath and told him to pick up his mat and walk, the authorities were furious because Christ had healed him on the sabbath (and Christ told him to pick up his mat, which they Pharisees considered "work").

Christ went after the false teachers - with both barrels. Many people, even today, mistakenly believe Christ was this overly gentle, almost feminized creature. He was is merciful to the repentant - but He is fierce to those who refuse to believe the truth.

He lambastes the teachers of the law - and lays them flat in John 5: 16-45.

Still, they refused to believe Him.

So it is for those whose hearts have turned to stone.

[Elsie]

	Only WORLDS? I can destroy a SOUL!!! (Just ask LeGrande)

[Elsie]

No one would be so stupid in an 1800’s forgery as to expect a Bible-reading public not to recognize Bible phrases.

And yet; it happened!

Go figger.

[Elsie]

How much more simple life would be for them if they just followed the Word of God.

Considering the evidence of the past; THIS will not be happening.

[Elsie]

Do you adhere to the doctrine of the preexistence of man, as spoken of by Enoch and scripture?

Do you adhere to the statement made by the founder of your religion that there was something UNTRUE about PRESBYTERIANISM?

[Revelation 911]

forgot me on your pinglist LOL

[Elsie]

 

Early in the century	Later....
“A lie told often enough becomes truth.”	"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."
Vladimir Lenin.	Joseph Goebbels

[sevenbak]

Creeds of men, Elsie. Yes, I adhere to that. God does not have 30 thousand different sets of rules and doctrines for all Christian Churches. He doesn’t work that way.

[MHGinTN]

Typical mormonism apologist deception, claiming something could not have been known except by Smithian revelation ... fact is, seven, the quoted passage is also found in the Bible. You know, that book mormons are only vaguely familiar with and which they denigrate at every opportunity with assertions of 'incompleteness' and 'corrupted translations':
"1. The text discovery took place in 1888. The Book of Mormon provides the citation in 1830. If the author of the Book of Mormon was not an ancient historian, how did know this?" sevenbak

You also raised a cogent point which you don't even realize: the true author of the text from which Smith plagarized was in fact an educated being, familiar with scriptures and different languages and texts.

[greyfoxx39]

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matt. 5:11,12 NIV)

What I find disturbing about this whole thing is the obsessive slander of Christian ministers, reminiscent of the teachings of early LDS leaders.

"When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was groveling in darkness."

-    Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 5, p. 73

"With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world."

-    Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 8, p. 199

"The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God"

-    Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 8, p. 171

  Here you have a mormon FReeper acting as though being a Christian minister is a crime of the worst order, especially if a Christian minister advocates Christianity on a public forum. This, while this forum is being flooded daily by LDS propaganda posts.

It is strange that an advocate for a sect that considers lying to possible converts to be acceptable, by presenting "milk before meat", can become SO outraged at the thought that there something inherently evil in a man of God presenting Christian doctrine to the public without wearing some kind of badge identifying him as being paid an honest wage for honest work. Perhaps if there ARE Christian ministers posting on FR, they should be required to post a yellow star along with their thoughts.

I know Godzilla to be exactly what he states on his home page to be and it appears to me that his genuine scriptural knowledge and ability to present that knowledge in debate winning posts is a thorn in the side of those who rely on voluminous cut-and-paste hacks to try and prove their points.

It is, indeed a window into the soul of those who claim to hold the holy priesthood given only to Jesus Christ alone, that they would claim evil of someone who presents himself only to be a servant of Jesus Christ time and again.

One wonders at the silence of mormons on this thread when these attacks are mounted by their co-religionist.

The way that this case is presented in claiming a good Christian and fellow FReeper to be a liar should disturb anyone who reads this slander.

[ejonesie22]

Ah, two post to me, I am flattered...

As far as being a “nice witness”, witnessing was not my intent, I only stated fact. I let others witness the faith, I am more a foot solider who tends to go up against those who directly or indirectly attack the one true faith.

As far as being a “holiness” far from it, but if it is holiness you seek I suggest the Bible, and the chapter and verse i quoted would be a good starting point. Perhaps from there your invincible ignorance will fall away to blessed grace...