[Paragon Defender]

Seekers of truth,

If you peruse the Free Republic religion forums you will notice a pattern. There’s an anti-Mormon group of people here that spends a great deal of their time attacking the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They post regurgitated propaganda on an almost daily basis.

They have a misguided obsession. You can witness many different tactics employed that you might find quite interesting. The straw man argument is a big favorite and is frequently preceded by cherry-picking quotes or other material. After the “quotation” the attacker will misrepresent what has been said or what was meant and then attack their own interpretation.

They will of course insist ad nauseum that they are merely using our sources and are therefore innocent of any deceptive practice. LDS persons have no issue whatsoever having our scriptures or leaders quoted as long as it is presented fairly and accurately. This is rarely (if ever) done.

Another favorite is posting scripture or statements which on their own really present no dilemma. They make something out of nothing while never bringing up a single objection that hasn’t been addressed a hundred times before.

You might note a couple of other tactics used to try to antagonize is the use of disrespectful or insulting terms or language and/or pictures. That’s a Christlike thing to do right? Yeah I don’t think so either. It does speak volumes about them though.

Sometimes they cruise the headlines of the day seeking any story that might be twisted into making the Church look bad. Anything will do, just watch the progression of posts following it and see what I mean.

After reading their posts, I invite you to seek the truth about whatever “issue” they seem to be “revealing” or “exposing”. I promise that if you do so with honest intent, the “ahah” moments you will have will be many and frequent. You will start to recognize the tactics employed to cleverly twist and attack and will likely chuckle the more you see. In actuality, there’s nothing new here. It’s all been addressed many times before.

Here’s a few links to get your started from a different viewpoint. I have found that the vast majority of the “issues” brought up can be found and addressed at http://www.fairlds.org/ but here’s more:

http://scriptures.lds.org/
http://www.lds.org
http://www.fairlds.org/
http://www.mormonapologetics.org/
http://www.mormonwiki.com/Main_Page
http://www.lightplanet.com/response/index.html
http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDS_Intro.shtml
http://www.answeringantimormons.com/index.htm
http://promormon.blogspot.com/

Now you will likely notice the “you never address our points” posts pop up as usual. All after providing the answers just as you have here.

Sometimes it is claimed that these sites present a needle in a haystack. Far from it. But if you give up before you try you won’t know will you?

Will you wear blinders too? Seek truth. Find out for yourself. Want to chat with someone on any topic? A few of these sites provide just that. So do your homework sincere seeker of truth. Listen and read from both “sides”. Make up your own mind.

I witness to you of these truths and wish you the best, in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

PD

[Godzilla]

Another commercial by our mormon car salesman. Read the fine print. Don't accept at face value mormon claims - take time to read other views and interpretations. Judge them by God's word - not joseph smith's and see if they pass the crucial test of truth?

Can you say the book of mormon is true when -
- there is no evidence of any of the cities that are suppose to have existed in this hemisphere of cultures that numbered in the millions?
- Translated by sticking his face into a hat and reading the characters projected by a smooth stone.
- Has had over 4000 corrections, all the while being plugged as the most perfect book on earth.
- Who's author has been proven a fraud by his spurious translation of a common egyptian burial papyrus and faked 'plates' (Kinderhook plates).

Nah, look past the slick talk by the salesman and see the truth.

[Colofornian]

Undecided readers,
If you're truly undecided religiously,
do you really want two punk kids just out of high
school wearing a badge that says "Elder such and such"
(how "elder" can these pimply-faced kids be?)
wearing their prescribed white shirt and tie uniform with a backpack
engage you in a convo where you know they are out to
proselytize so you can go baptize dead people in their temples
which were started by a guy who had even more pimples
when he supposedly saw some visionage about two unnamed
personages at age 14, 15 or 16, depending upon which
version of that vision you are reading????

And yet these Lds missionaries are exactly "kids" anymore...they're out of high school, anyway...and yet the Lds imposes many rules I would never even impose upon a 6th grader.
And if you convert, would you really subject your own kids to such legalistic pre-teen treatment nonsense? Really?

(I didn't think so)

[SZonian]

What a load of bilgewater.

I find the following assertion of yours to be a classic example of hypocrisy on display.

"You might note a couple of other tactics used to try to antagonize is the use of disrespectful or insulting terms or language and/or pictures."

Uh huh, sure. No antagonizing going on here is there? Being accused of accessories to murder and arson? Compared to Gadianton robbers? Compared to pigs? Being Atherosclorotic? Sociopaths? Behaving like swine? Being dishonest? Yammering mocking demons? Spewers of hate? Vermin? Twisted thinkers?

"It does speak volumes about them though."

Yeah, I guess it does.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

All you have demonstrated is that you have feelings
and links to cultic sources, but apparently cannot
think clearly enough to DEFEND what you CLAIM.

It is one thing to ADDRESS something. It is anther
thing to ANSWER something.

When you make wild mormon claims, it is like the
roof of a house sitting directly on the ground.
There is no foundation or walls or structural
support to hold it up where a roof should be.

What supports a roof (truth claim)? Walls (facts,
evidence, logical argument that demonstrates the
validity of a truth claim).

You continue to make wild claims of the truth
of mormonism and mistakenly believe that posting
links supports your fraudulent claims. Sorry
Non-Defender. Your roof lays on the ground as
you continue to point to it.

It has no foundation of validity, nor can
you (apparently) defend it.

The Apostles Paul, Peter and Jude criticized
the false truth claims of their day. Paul
commanded us to EXPOSE EVIL. Christ condemned
the false religion of His day.

We fulfill that example and command by pointing
out that your roof is lying on the ground, has no
foundation and has not a single wall.

Please continue to demonstrate daily that all
you have is feelings and false links.

ampu

[Osage Orange]

Did you ever question, chastise, or respond to the mormon's that accused fellow FReeper's of murder...and arson?

Or were you one of them? I can't recall..........

[Colofornian]

Discerning, decided readers,

Some Non Defenders Non Defend by claiming what we say has been covered over & over @ links they provide...
These Non Defenders claim these are Non issues...
...and that all you need to do is click, pop in a word in the search, click again and voila!
...”needles of wisdom” just pour forth from your computer screen...

Some Non Defenders claim one such haystack link worth investigatin' is fairlds.org...
...So when you take up this defective deflective challenge...
...and put in a phrase like “Adam-God” [re: Brigham Young's teaching that the first man, Adam, was God] in the search box of that Web site, the second entry that pops up from that search is Church doctrine/Repudiated concepts/Adam-God [This is FAIR's WIKI format attempt to address some things]

Some Non Defenders claim such entries at their links both "address" and "answer" these claims...
...yet when you check under the hood of this lemon, you get varied Lds apologists' opinion about Brigham's "Adam is God" teaching...
...like: Brigham was wrong [Joseph Smith said the very “first principle” of the Mormon gospel was to know the character of God, (King Follet funeral sermon), yet Brigham couldn't get a kindergarten identity issue down in not being able to distinguish Adam from God?]

Some Non Defenders claim such entries at their links reinforce for us such attractive snapshots of Brigham Young, such as Lds apologist Van Hale's concession that Brigham was ”mistaken” about who Adam was and that Adam, after all, was a ”complex doctrinal subject.”

Some Non Defenders claim such entries at their links love to cite Lds “apostle” letters from almost 30 years ago, letters which concede THAT BRIGHAM YOUNG, CONTRADICTED BRIGHAM YOUNG, AND THE ISSUE BECOMES ONE OF WHICH BRIGHAM YOUNG WE WILL BELIEVE. [Lds "apostle" Bruce R. McConkie, 1981 letter cited on link above]

Therefore, instead of Non Defenders just telling you outright that Lds “apostles” concede that...
Brigham Young taught falsely who God was...
But didn't always identify Adam as God...
Therefore, Brigham Young was theologically schizophrenic...
And that Brigham Young was 100% untrustworthy, because we don't know (still) which Brigham Young to believe?
...he makes you click twice, type in a word, and read an entire Mormon FAIR Wiki entry!!!

Some Non Defenders claim such entries at their links don't all agree what Mormon apologists should do about Brigham's out-of-tune “glitches” … as if you – the spiritual inquirer – just warm up and tingle all inside whenever you hear admissions from “the faithful” that their flock front man “glitches” on basic Genesis quizzes like, “Who was Adam?” But, not wanting to psychoanalyze Brigham Young as spiritually schizophrenic, what's a Mormon apologist to do?

Well, that narrows down the conclusions left for the average Mormon apologist, if you follow the links provided by some Non Defenders.

Why, if Brigham wasn't schizophrenic, what then?
Final “options?”...
The summations below precede the bracketed {actual quotations found @ one of Non Defender's links -- FAIR's WIKI entry on Adam-God being "repudiated"}

#1 Brigham was PR-challenged {“A final explanation is that Brigham Young believed and taught Adam-God...but he...didn't live long enough to 'develop' the teaching [read: spin] into something that could be reconciled with LDS scripture...”}
#2 Brigham inspired a LOT of Mormon agnostic followers about who God was: {”We don't know...In this view, we simply don't know what Brigham Young meant...”}
#3 Brigham's plain English was non-interpretable minus either a decoder ring, or dark hat, or the Joe Smith special urim and thummim {"We simply don't know what Brigham Young meant."...why that could only mean they don't know plain English!!!}
#4 Brigham's “revelation receptor” was “glitch” prone – comparable to the Ford Pinto of a later era {”An anomaly is a glitch.... A classic example of an anomaly in the LDS tradition is the so-called "Adam-God theory." -- BYU professor Stephen Robinson}
#5 Brigham inspired in the average Mormon apologist this “confessional credo”: “How do we Mormons deal with these questions? We don't. We abandon them...like we abandon you the inquirer...like we abandon the questions on FR.” {”So how do Latter-day Saints deal with the phenomenon? WE DON'T; WE SIMPLY SET IT ASIDE.” – BYU professor Stephen Robinson}

Such “gems of wisdom” await you all...all at the multiple click of a mouse!