A Season for Gratitude (Mormon

Ah, the beginning of this 1997 greeting from the now-deceased Mormon "prophet." (The only thing is the misnamed headline: Should have been, "Merry Smithmas!")

From the article: This is a season for giving and a time for gratitude. We remember with appreciation the birth of the Prophet Joseph Smith, which is celebrated this same month of December, two days before Christmas. How great indeed is our debt to him.

And from another graph: ...Let not his memory be forgotten in the celebration of Christmas...

Hmmm...I mean, I'm not sure I want to "Bah, humbug" some of the things people do this time of the year...but the world "owes" Joseph Smith a "great...debt"? What? (Do we pay him with wives or something as the "currency" that Smith'll accept?)

And Smith's memory, per Hinckley, is "not...[to] ...be forgotten in the celebration of Christmas..."

Really?

From the article: Great is his glory and endless his priesthood. Ever and ever the keys he will hold. Faithful and true, he will enter his kingdom... (“Praise to the Man,” Hymns, no. 27)

Well, I see Hinckley got the primary Smithmas carol down pat! Except he only cited verse 3, which tells us how Mormons sing of "Great is his glory...he will enter his kingdom."

The "glory...& kingdom" of Jesus Christ?

Well, uh, sadly. No. Mormons sing of the "great glory" of Smith! -- who gets his own "kingdom" as part of the heavenly divine competition the Mormons have going on up there.

Well, Hinckley ignored v. 1, where it tells us how "Kings shall extol him, and nations revere."

Now that's what you'd expect to see on a Christmas card from Hallmark, right? Wrong!!!

Why, that's the "Merry Smithmas card!" version...and the one getting to be extolled by kings & revered by the rest of us peons is none other than Joseph Smith!!! Merry Smithmas!

Had Mr. Hinckley cited verse 2 for us, we could have been reminded how: ...the earth lauds his fame. (You mean the fame of Jesus Christ? Nope! The hymn says to "Laud" Smith all! Merry Smithmas!)

And finally, v. 4 of the Mormon hymn from the Mormon hymnal, "Praise to the Man" -- also NOT covered by Hinckley -- where we finally get to the atonement! Hurray! Hurrah!

Uh...wait a minute...what? V. 4 says, "Earth must atone for the blood of that man." Say what?

Mormons don't sing @ "Merry Smithmas" time about...
...The eventual atonement of the Christ child???...
...& his eventual shed blood for us???...
...But instead sing worship songs to Smith about Smith's shed blood? -- and that, WE, the earth, need to do the atoning?

Well, that's the topsy-turvy way it works in wacky Mor-monlehem...as the shepherds quake about Vermont every Dec. 23 -- Smith's b'day!

So, if you see a weird star low o'er the Northeastern coast of our land, well, you heard it from the "Go tell it on the Mt. Zion" network here first!

BTW, you'll notice on various Q&A type of Web sites – as well as (no doubt) FR responses on this very thread – that Mormons will jump in and answer the question, “Do Mormons celebrate Christmas?”

And, of course, they'll say they affirmatively do.

Of course, the question, you really don't see on those Web sites (or see oft' addressed by Lds Freepers on these threads) is the following one:

”Do Mormons as a church body celebrate Christmas Day – or Christmas Eve – beyond when one of those two days happens to fall on a Sabbath Day?”

Well, the answer to that is generally, no!
Not as a church body!
Not on Christmas Day (unless it falls on a Sunday)!
And not on Christmas Eve (unless it falls on a Sunday).

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.Later they will have the audacity to claim they were "only" quoting our own material.

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.

Some of them claim being some sort of special witness to you as being supposedly former Mormons. So someone who is an ex-member of any organization would never have an axe to grind or have reason to try to justify their actions by any means? Perhaps not but perhaps so. The LDS Church gains members from other denominations as well as others faiths all the time. This doesn't make them an expert on anything and you certainly won't hear them attacking their forner Church.

Frequently 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.

The latest twist in the anti-Mormon propaganda machine is to actually go to the links provided, but then they cherry pick what they want, then quote and straw man attack that. Clever. It almost appears that they are helping you, the seeker of truth out by doing some footwork for you. Not so much. Don't be insulted, look for yourself. It's not the haystack they want you to think.

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 or answer 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? They often state that these sites provide no answer. They just don't want you looking. It is as simple as that.

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.

Does the world owe a debt of gratitude to all the Lord’s prophets throughout history? Of course.

Most recently, the prophet Joseph Smith. He was the prophet of the restoration of Jesus Christ’s Church.

Just as one who shares Paragon Defenders initials, Pavlov’s Dog, he instinctively cuts and pastes his discredited list of Mormon apologetic websites because he is unable on his own, to “defend for the faith”. Some real interaction and study of the scriptures would be refreshing, but I guess meaningless cut and pastes are easier.
Meanwhile, I am re reading some information from the history of Susquehannah County pg. 580 about how Joseph Smith the “peeper” actually joined the local Methodist Church at the same time as he was supposedly deciphering the “golden plates”. The very ones he got from a personage who told him that all the present religions and creeds were an abomination. Yet......he joined the Methodists. Oh yea....they booted his rear end out after only 3 days.

So.....Merry Smithmas is celebrated just TWO days before the feast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

How utterly coincidental! And convenient, too.

Please stop posting from unofficial lds sites. All but two say they are not affiliated with lds.

This question may be too difficult for you to answer, but here goes: How many High Priests held the office of High Priest at any one given time in Judaism? And an ancillary query: What ended a High Priest’s hold on the office?

“Hinckley bells, Hinckley bells, Hinckley all the way....”

BTW, the Mormon Santa has no sleigh, just a handcart.

;^)

aaah another classless anti-Mormon post.

What the Heck??????

I ain’t elevating anyone on par or even in the realm, with parity, of Jesus Christ.

I owe no man anything.

I owe God everything.

(Well, I do have to admit to celebrating Elvis’s Birthday Jan 8 and Death in Aug 17th)

I’d say for him to keep his day job, but not really classless. Now, howabout answering post 8?

He was the prophet of the restoration of Jesus Christ’s Church.

(Which, of course, assumes that the original church of Jesus Christ was totally "lost..." ...to apostasy.)

How did the Mormon "restoration" come to be so closely linked with so-called complete Christian apostasy?
(1) No "restoration" can occur minus the complete loss of the original church. (The Mormon founder needed to take a scorched-earth approach to Christians, otherwise he -- and his restoration -- was 100% superflous. Either he was unnecessary, or the Christian church was...so Smith chose the Christian church to be! He essentially tossed all Christians into one gigantic graveyard, and tried to erect a new religion on top of it.
(2) Let's face it, if Smith's "diagnosis" of Christians was wrong, that all did NOT commit apostasy, then no need existed for him or his restoration-from-scratch.

[Even all the Lds Bible verses they come up with on the apostasy...
(a) proves it wasn't to be "universal";
and (b) actually contradicts it...verses like Eph. 3:21 and 1 Tim. 4:1]

Joseph Smith's 'Graveyard' Narrative About the Historic Christian Church

The LDS church long ago dug a gigantic graveyard for Christianity and told us, "Jump in!"
(Hey, Jim Jones used "koolaid" for over 700 bodies...Joseph Smith tried a "vision" for billions of Christians who have lived since the 2nd century)

How many of you all have played the game Jenga @ Christmas? (You have to remove a block without the whole structure crashing)

Well, in Mormonism, if you remove the 100% apostasy of the Christian church for say, 15-17 centuries, then guess what? There's absolutely no need for a restoration! (The very existence as a "restoration" church would be 100% pointless).

That's why Mormons are 100% invested in the 100% downfall of the historic Christian church!
* Their very purpose for existence is built upon the foundation that Christendom went 100% AWOL.
* Their very door-to-door & written-word foundation is erected upon convincing the world that we're all apostates.

So how is that anything different than Muslims accusing Christians of being "infidels?"

Maybe, just maybe if Mormons could cite any Biblical verse which talks about a total apostasy…they could let the authority ride upon that verse and let that verse speak for itself & that would be that. But, no…LDS leaders have to try, by hook and by crook, to piece together a tangled web to try to reach a conclusion the Bible itself never reaches. LDS introduce its grand straw man.

Mormons seem to have HUGE problems delineating between the qualifiers of...
...“Partial” and “complete”—
...Between “localized” and “universal.”
(What? When your Mom told you that you could have a “piece” of pie, you ate the whole thing because you thought "piece" = devouring its entirety?)

Why do LDS have to conclude that apostasy is ALWAYS an all-or-nothing interpretation?

Well, again, see above: LDS, knowing their weakest foundation is to build a grave for all of Christianity and then have the utter gall to try to build its church on a tombstone it’s created for us is the ultimate “Scripture snipping” job I’ve ever seen.

But “we” understand. Hey, as the LDS leader overwhelmingly elected by Utah Mormon voters but who got booted from Congress before serving (Brigham Roberts) said: "Nothing less than a complete apostasy from the Christian religion would warrant the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Introduction to the History of the Church 1:XL).

So...we all see the sheer desperation of the Mormon church:
No total apostasy, no need for a “restoration.”
No graveyard of Christianity, no “restoration.”

Hence, note the grand “straw men” of Lds "apostle" James Talmage:

2. Evidence that the apostasy occurred as had been predicted is found in the sacred scriptures and in the records of history other than scriptural. From certain utterances of the early-day apostles it is made plain to us that the great "falling away" had begun even while those apostles were living.

(Oh, yeah, we “get it.” LDS believe & teach the following judgmentalism upon all souls living in the following centuries: 5th century: No REAL Christians in an authorityless Christian Church 6th century: No REAL Christians in the authorityless Christian Church 7th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church 8th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church 9th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church 10th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church 11th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church 12th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church 13th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church 14th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church 15th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church 16th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church 17th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church 18th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church 19th century: No REAL Christians in the Christian Church...
--at least, not until 14 year old glass looker, treasure-seeker Joe Smith came along.)

That was a mildly funny joke. If you want a real classless Mormon joke, here's one.

...the Mormon Santa...

The Mormon Santa, in part, I hear tell, relies upon temple recommend data collected by Mormon bishops. You know, those invasive questions asked by Mormon non-clergy pretending to be "clergy" in their after-hours "job."

In other words, no temple recommend equals no presents from Mormon Santa and his flying handcart.

;^)

Dude! Why didn’t you post something like that before?

Excellent essay.

Cue the final jeopardy music ... I’ll give PD a ferw more minutes before the buzzer and then ...

Lynn is a wife, mother, grandmother, scholar, and author with a doctorate in education. In her 11 years as a professor and researcher, and 20 years as a teacher, she has mentored thousands of students and has produced more than 50 scholarly publications. Her sphere of research is how to advance the academic and social-emotional success of “marginalized” students. Indeed, this very interest led her to question Mormonism. Once tenured faculty at BYU, Dr. Wilder left in 2008 when she experienced a crisis of faith.

http://www.exmormonscholarstestify.org/lynn-wilder.html