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Remember, this was a talk given by an LDS Church leader to LDS folks in the 1800’s, and it is about how they were not living up to Christian ideas and how they, the Mormons of the 1800’s, needed to improve their lives.

YOU are the one taking things out of context. Several posters have already said they see NO DIFFERENCE between the excerpted quote and the whole quote. Either you are the one twisting Taylor's words OR Taylor was so incoherent and confusing in his speech that it is unclear.

As I've already pointed out, Taylor's quote you brought to the table is NOT isolated. I've provided several more. Yet, you ignore those and sweep them under the "context" rug. You have failed in every respect to make your point with the original quote and now have a list of quotes to explain your way out of.

Can you bring yourself to disavow yourself of what those quotes say? Yes or no?

I think deep down you KNOW that Taylor's quotes are self-explanatory and that he was bashing Christianity. I think that is why you won't disavow yourself of them. Can't disagree with a "prophet of God", can you?

>> Remember, this was a talk given by an LDS Church leader to LDS folks in the 1800’s, and it is about how they were not living up to Christian ideas and how they, the Mormons of the 1800’s, needed to improve their lives. <<

Doesn’t read like that to me. It reads like the author is absolutely contemptuous of Christian ideas. It reads far less like “Be a better Christian” than like “Be better than those evil Christians.” It’s just a great secondary example of how Mormons of the 19th century did not consider themselves Christians.

Frankly, while I welcome any and all ideas, I think the entire Mormon presence on FR has been extremely counter-productive to Mormon goals. From far away, Mormonism comes across as a little eccentric but very nice. The closer it gets inspected on FR (especially by its own proponents), the darker it seems. And I get irked because frankly, I think Mormons make Catholics look bad by using a lot of the same arguments but to devastatingly different purposes.

From the same page as the quote at the top:

the world has been apostate for generations past: it has been under the dominion of the prince and power
of the air, even the god of this world, who rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience. As I have stated
before they have been wrong in their national affairs, they have been wrong in political affairs, they have been
wrong in their religion and they have been wrong in everything.( JOD 6:167)

Not so much as needing to improve their lives, but how everyone else is wrong and how God will use the LDS to set the world right. Although, he does discuss they needed to learn obedience to teach obedience.

http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/JournalOfDiscourses3&CISOPTR=9602&REC=6