Posted on 11/12/2011 10:43:37 AM PST by Saundra Duffy
Some public figures have labeled the “Mormon” church as a “cult”. Most recently, ABC News reported that Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress applied such a label in an interview following a political gathering where Jeffress introduced a political rival to Mormon candidate Mitt Romney.
Use of such a term to describe Mormonism is highly offensive to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Cult” carries the connotation of dangerous, even violent groups whose beliefs are irrational and whose practices are immoral and lawless (Koresh and the Branch Davidians, Heaven’s Gate, Aum Shinrikyo, and The People’s Temple are all prominent examples) . The term cannot be applied to Mormons unless it is so broadly defined that its use could be applied to virtually any religious body.
Like racist language, the use of the word “cult” to describe a religion usually tells us very little about the religion, but a great deal about the person using the word. In short, it tells us only that the person using the label “cult” doesn’t like the religion in question, or thinks it is illegitimate. Bryan Wilson, a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and a noted sociologist of minority religions noted:
(Excerpt) Read more at mdl.org ...
ooooo Sandy. Tisk Tisk.
Do you need a hankie to dry those tears of self pity?
This is the BEST you can do to JUSTIFY what your FOUNDERS and LEADERS have said?
Go to Penn and help THAT 'Joe'!
Most visitors to Free Republic are attracted to our very popular (and, warning: addictive)...
Please. Do NOT refer to the Holy Writings of MORMONism in that manner.
--MormonDude(Thank you)
She was JOKING! She was JOKING! She was JOKING! Give her a break! What ever happened to humor?
"Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkned his Eyes than he would take a sentance and it would apper in Brite Roman Letters. Then he would tell the writer and he would write it. Then that would go away the next sentance would Come and so on. But if it was not Spelt rite it would not go away till it was rite, so we see it was marvelous. Thus was the hol [whole] translated."---Joseph Knight's journal.
"In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us."
(History of the RLDS Church, 8 vols.(Independence, Missouri: Herald House,1951),"Last Testimony of Sister Emma [Smith Bidamon]," 3:356.
"I, as well as all of my father's family, Smith's wife, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, were present during the translation. . . . He [Joseph Smith] did not use the plates in translation."
---(David Whitmer,as published in the "Kansas City Journal," June 5, 1881,and reprinted in the RLDS "Journal of History", vol. 8, (1910), pp. 299-300.
In an 1885 interview, Zenas H. Gurley, then the editor of the RLDS Saints Herald, asked Whitmer if Joseph had used his "Peep stone" to do the translation. Whitmer replied:
"... he used a stone called a "Seers stone," the "Interpreters" having been taken away from him because of transgression. The "Interpreters" were taken from Joseph after he allowed Martin Harris to carry away the 116 pages of Ms [manuscript] of the Book of Mormon as a punishment, but he was allowed to go on and translate by use of a "Seers stone" which he had, and which he placed in a hat into which he buried his face, stating to me and others that the original character appeared upon parchment and under it the translation in English."
"Martin Harris related an incident that occurred during the time that he wrote that portion of the translation of the Book of Mormon which he was favored to write direct from the mouth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He said that the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone, Martin explained the translation as follows: By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin and when finished he would say 'Written,' and if correctly written that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used."
(Edward Stevenson, "One of the Three Witnesses,"reprinted from Deseret News, 30 Nov. 1881in Millennial Star, 44 (6 Feb. 1882): 86-87.)
In 1879, Michael Morse, Emma Smith's brother-in-law, stated:"When Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon [I] had occasion more than once to go into his immediate presence, and saw him engaged at his work of translation. The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face, resting his elbows upon his knees, and then dictating word after word, while the scribes Emma, John Whitmer, O. Cowdery, or some other wrote it down."
(W.W. Blair interview with Michael Morse,Saints Herald, vol. 26, no. 12June 15, 1879, pp. 190-91.)
Joseph Smith's brother William also testified to the "face in the hat" version:"The manner in which this was done was by looking into the Urim and Thummim, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light, (the plates lying near by covered up), and reading off the translation, which appeared in the stone by the power of God"("A New Witness for Christ in America,"Francis W. Kirkham, 2:417.)
"The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret was the same manner as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stone in his hat, while the book of plates were at the same time hid in the woods."---Isaac Hale (Emma Smith's father's) affidavit, 1834.
Mormonism condemns all non Mormons to hell, so LDS have nothing to complain about.
If they do, they’re just being hypocrites.
Oh, racist.......must be the new word for November.
Sorry sweetie, I can not be racist against mormonISM because mormonISM is not a race.
I should have known “racist” was the word of the month, as an exchange on two other boards accused me of being racist against mormons. I pointed out that mormonISM is not a race and was told because they have been around over 100 years they are now a race. (huh?)
What term - racist or cult?
Money involved.......hahah when FR starts pulling in one billion a year, then get back to me.
Oh, we DO!
We have ALL of their Conservative votes LOCKED UP!
But I have a REAL hard time understanding how ROMNEY and Reid got elected if MORMONs are so dang dinged Conservative?
The "Dead Dunking" is hilarious, and yet a downright EVIL LIE. J.Smith made it up to appease his dieing father, who was distressing over his other son who died without being baptized. Smitty just made it up, lol Now they dead dunk by the dozens at the same time.
There is one place, a forum for all who escaped out of the cult. They sure have a lot to unload and disclose about all the lies they were fed.
F.R. is not a cult, we have too many differant opinions for that.
I think SD was just making a hypothetical example here guys and gals.
I doubt very much she believes that.
Saundra,
So... if I understand your argument, as a mormon and FReeper,
you are in two cults??
Double cultist Alert!!
People go to hell of their own free will, no one condemns them there.
What about PRESBYTERIANism?
You used to BE one; yet do NOT know what JS alledgely 'learned' to be 'untrue' about it!
To each his own.
Smile and wave, boys; smile and wave.
Ah...
then you DO know JS' history before he was visited by, ahem, two PERSONAGEs.
So posting the actual words of lds leaders is a “dog pile”....Sandy you are just to cute. I however would have called it something else.
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