[elcid1970]

Real question: The Mormons I have met are decent, well educated, intelligent, and neighbor-friendly, so how can such people believe in all the fantastical poppycock that the Book of Mormon is full of? Why are they so deceived?

[Colofornian]

Real question: The Mormons I have met are decent, well educated, intelligent, and neighbor-friendly, so how can such people believe in all the fantastical poppycock that the Book of Mormon is full of? Why are they so deceived?

(a) Mom & Dad & other relatives trained them;
(b) Mormon leadership ingrains them thru cultic "blame games" aimed at apostates;
(c) overwhelming emphasis on "feelings" as determiner of truth...

Examples on (C):

From the Doctrine & Covenants "Student Manual" published by the Mormon church in 2000:

"Elder Boyd K. Packer described how the Spirit communicates: 'I have come to know that inspiration comes more as a FEELING than as a sound...'" (p. 378) [Packer's an "apostle"]

Reuben Clark was one of the top three hierarchical Mormons:

"...after praying to the Lord and FEELING inspired..." (p. 362)

p. 21 of the manual uses the word "feeling" or "felt" three times on p. 21...uses the word "burn" or "burning" three times (in relation to a "burning of the bosom")...

Altho Mormons place a high emphasis on education, much of Mormonism's "discernment" boils down to such sentimentalism...which leads to...

"'We can tell when the speakers are 'moved upon by the Holy Ghost' only when we, ourselves, are 'moved upon by the Holy Ghost.'" (Address delivered to seminary & institute of religion personnel July 7, 1954, as cited in the student manual, p. 144)

So there ya go. A kind of circular reasoning...well, "reasoning" isn't the right word here...circular "bosoming" perhaps...where just about anything can be constantly reinforced as "so"...

[greyfoxx39]

The Mormons I have met are decent, well educated, intelligent, and neighbor-friendly

I was born into mormonism in a heavily mormon area in which I knew mormons who were drunks, thieves, pedophiles, adulterers and instead of neighbor-friendly were back-biting and judgmental.

In other words, having lived in several locations where mormons were plentiful, I found that mormons are NOT any different from any other group of people except in their tendency to consider themselves superior because of the claim to have the "restored" gospel and "the one and only true church on the face of the earth" and continually exhibit the arrogance that comes from that supposed "superiority".

mormon.org "The True and Living Church

Leave it alone..mormon style

You ask "Why are they so deceived?" I ask, why are so many Christians fooled by the false face presented by mormons to the world?

[Nifster]

Because the Good Book tells me that in the last days even the very elect are in danger of being deceived......

[Elsie]

Why are they so deceived?

1. Some were born into it and it is their CULTURE as well.
2. Some do not have a cursory knowledge of what the BIBLE has taught for centuries asnd bought into what the missionaries told them.
3. Some were LoveBombed into the cult and have not had time yet to completely find out what they have chosen.

Bottom line is this...

2 Corinthians 11:12-15

12. But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we.
13. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 14. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
15. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

 

Did God REALLY say...

[svcw]

Simply put, they must be as they have to earn their salvation, and are working towards godhood

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

“Real question: The Mormons I have met are decent, well educated, intelligent, and neighbor-friendly, so how can such people believe in all the fantastical poppycock that the Book of Mormon is full of? Why are they so deceived?”

---

When it comes down to it, the “why they are so deceived” is because they aren’t decent, well-educated, intelligent, and neighbor-friendly. No one is, outside of Jesus Christ. We are all gone astray, we have together become unprofitable. None of us are “good” people, and before salvation we are thoroughly in bondage to the sins of our flesh. No matter how good we may think we are, a real analysis of our motives, hearts, and works would condemn us instantly. Appearance is deceptive, beauty is vain, only God is sure.