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Locked on 03/03/2008 9:42:54 AM PST by Religion Moderator, reason:
Childish behavior |
Posted on 02/22/2008 9:11:12 AM PST by Zakeet
They're called the "Lost Boys," the teenagers kicked out of their homes and communities by leaders of the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to ensure there's an ample supply of single, young women who will one day become plural wives. Representative Lorie Fowlke (R-Orem), is running a bill to make this abandonment a felony.
"Estimates are that we've had more than 1,000 children - primarily in southern Utah - thrown out of their homes," Fowlke says. "What we were trying to do with this bill is criminalize this behavior and send a message to this community that they can't just throw away their children."
H.B. 23 adds child abandonment to the definition of child abuse, and makes it a felony crime. It also adds an enhancement if a parent or organization benefits from the child's abandonment to further an illegal enterprise, such as polygamy. This is the case with the FLDS church, says Roger Hoole, a lawyer who represents some of the displaced young men and sits on the board for the Utah Association for Justice. He says the church benefits from kicking out young men who would compete for plural wives. This, he says, has devastating consequences.
"There's a huge impact that's coming, like a tsunami, that's going to hit the state of Utah, when these boys get a little older and realize what has happened to them and get angry," Hoole says. "There's a real problem here."
Fowlke's bill gained unanimous support in a Senate committee this morning, and now heads to the full Senate for consideration.
I’ve been thinking.
I think it is very helpful to our position when the comments of Mormons are left on these threads. It allows lurkers a view into their mindset.
IMHO, we on the other side of Mormonism, need to buck up and let the names and innuendo against us stay put in these posts. Then the light will truly shine on the mindset of Mormonism, - - how the followers are often deluded, antagonistic, meanspirited and suffer from cognitive dissonance. What better way to make our point!
Mod, thank you for allowing many of these posts to remain.
As for us. Let us let these comments slide off like water off a ducks back. So they hate us, so what? If God be for us who can be against us. March on.
Now really, you’re on a conservative site like the FR, & you take an article in the NYT as undisputed truth? Back in 1912, the NYT could recognize fraud and, at that point, they weren't, yet, participating in fraud.
It is a good article...did you read it?
It's beginning to look like a directive has come down from on high for the elders, as an adjunct to the announcement that an edited version of Joe Smith's writings is going to be published there's a brand new web site "explaining" the mormon take on Jesus, and of course, there is Ballard's command to the troops to "take to the internet". Kind of a "call to arms" system-wide, it appears.
Those few little words in a question by Huckabee to a reporter stirred that ant hill up considerabley.
It appears that this effort began, in earnest, when Mitt announced that he was running.
Yep.
Well put!
IMO Mitt and LDS, Inc., expected him just to waltz into the nomination.
"It is difficult to deal seriously with Joseph Smith's impudent fraud." Dr. A.H. Sayce, Oxford, England
"I have examined the illustrations given in the 'Pearl of Great Price.' In the first place, they are copies (very badly done) of well known Egyptian subjects of which I have dozens of examples. Secondly, they are all many centuries later than Abraham." Dr. W.M. Flinders Petrie, London University
"Joseph Smith's interpretation of them as part of a unique revelation through Abraham, therefore, very clearly demonstrates that he was totally unacquainted with the significance of these documents and absolutely ignorant of the simplest facts of Egyptian writing and civilization." James, H. Breasted, Ph.D., Haskell Oriental Museum, University of Chicago
"The 'Book of Abraham,' it is hardly necessary to say, is a pure fabrication." Dr. Arthur C. Mace, Assist. Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, Dept. of Egyptian Art
"The plates contained in the 'Pearl of Great Price' are rather comical and a very poor imitation of Egyptian originals." Dr. John Peters, Univ. of Pennsylvania
"...the explanatory notes to his facsimiles cannot be taken seriously by any scholar, as they seem to be undoubtedly the work of pure imagination." Rev. Prof. C.A.B. Mercer, Ph.D., Western Theological Seminary, Custodian Hibbard Collection, Egyptian Reproductions.
"The Egyptian papyrus which Smith declared to be the 'Book of Abraham,' and 'translated' or explained in his fantastical way, and of which are three specimens are published in the 'Pearl of Great Price' are parts of the well known 'Book of the Dead.' Although the reproductions are very bad, one can easily recognize familiar scenes from this book." Dr. Edward Meyer, University of Berlin "A careful study has convinced me that Smith probably believed seriously to have deciphered the ancient hieroglyphics, but that he utterly failed. What he calls the 'Book of Abraham' is a funeral Egyptian text, probably not older than the Greek ages." Dr. Friedrich Freiheer Von Bissing, Professor of Egyptology in the University of Munich
No kidding. One lousy question and he became the ultimate religious bigot.
If one question can stir up a hornet's nest like that, then let us keep asking questions. We will get no answers from the usual apologists, just a lot of vitriol and accusations against our motives, but in the end the truth will out.
Back in the 1890's the truth about Mormonism was revealed and the Mormons rescinded the everlasting covenant regarding the necessity of Polygamy for exaltation. In the 1960's the truth of the LDS Church's teachings about the inferiority of the African Race came out into the public domain and the LDS Church rescinded the eternal curse against the so-called descendants of Cain.
With the internet and now the MSM revealing some of the abberant doctrines and strange history of the Mormons, they are clearly on the defensive. And when you back a rat into a corner they are going to fight back visciously. I think we see a lot of that in the personal attacks on those who would expose the teachings of the Mormon Church to the light of truth.
Just keep shining that light. The truth will out and those who are receptive to the truth will receive it.
Keep the faith.
Spread the Word.
Plant seeds.
Reap the Harvest.
And then, pby posted: You stated that before on this thread, Omm, and I asked you to provide the specific instance...You have not, yet, responded with specificity.
Please provide documentation of your claim.
This is, at least, the second time that I have asked you to provide documentation related to your claims...and you have not, yet provided any.
Now I am looking for reasoned discussion here. If your game, I am as well. If your looking for a trip to the sandbox, I’ll pass. That’s why I will not respond to MHG’s post, been there & done that. I’ve been called an agent of Satan by those who have differing views & no answers to the views I express except to call names & call it spin. Maturity will not allow the participation in such foolish games.
So, the ball’s in your court. Reasoned, adult discussion, or no discussion other than w/ those w/ whom you agree. Your call. My time is somewhat limited today, but I will respond as I can
But for the fact that he was a liberal.
This really isn't a difficult issue.
Experts have translated the funeral papyri and it does not transalte into anything contained in the Book of Abraham, nor does it contain any other portions of the Pearl of Great Price.
The translation is a flat out fraud.
Now that would be a change of pace...
Please recite articles in contradiction to the article I posted. I would enjoy the banter back & forth over a very interesting topic.
Indeed.
"The attempts, including Nibley's, to explain away and dodge the trap into which Joseph Smith fell when he had the audacity to translate the Chandler text, and keep the original Egyptian texts around, are absurd, in my view.
"My views are not for publication or spreading abroad. I am like you--maintaining membership because of the many fine things the Church offers. But facts speak for themselves. I offered the data available to my Stake Pres. recently and he walked away without it--saying he didn't want to read it. They can hardly excommunicate us when they won't look at the evidence.
Of course the dodge as to the Book of Abraham must be: 'WE DON'T HAVE THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT FROM WHICH THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM WAS TRANSLATED.' I conclude that we do have it and have translations of it." (Letter from Thomas Ferguson to Jim, dated March 13, 1971)
an excerpt from the afore mentioned article in relation to RECENT discoveries that seem to butress Joseph’s case:
“In Facsimile 2 are four mummy-like figures known—to Egyptologists—as the Sons of Horus. Their images were also on the canopic jars (the jars that stored the internal organs of the deceased) that we see under the lion couch scene in Facsimile 1. Joseph revealed that these four figures represented “this earth in its four quarters.” According to modern Egyptologists, Joseph Smith is correct. The Sons of Horus “were the gods of the four quarters of the earth and later came to be regarded as presiding over the four cardinal points.”19
Years ago, Dr. Nibley pointed out that the critics generally focus on the Egyptian vignettes in the Book of Abraham and the papyri but neglect the much richer Abrahamic traditions found in the Ancient Near East. This is really where Joseph shines. Recent studies into ancient Abrahamic lore and Jewish traditions preserved in ancient texts, show some surprising parallels to what we find in the text of the Book of Abraham. Some of these parallels are very convincing and imply that Joseph (who likely could not have had access to many of these traditions) actually restored authentic ancient Abrahamic lore. Some of these parallels include early Jewish traditions about Abraham’s life—details not found in the Bible.20 Two such ancient documents that show some surprising parallels to our Book of Abraham are the Apocalypse of Abraham21 and the Testament of Abraham22 (the Apocalypse of Abraham dates to about the same time as the Book of Abraham papyri).
Other interesting parallels include ancient names, for example, that would have been unknown to Joseph Smith. These names are accurately represented in the Book of Abraham both phonetically as well as in meaning.23 Those of you who attended last year’s conference would have heard John Tvedtnes speak on this. He pointed out that many of the names were authentic.
Another interesting parallel is ancient astronomy. In Joseph Smith’s day “heliocentricity” (as proposed by Copernicus and Newton) was the accepted astronomical view. Nineteenth-century people (including the most brilliant minds of the day) believed that everything revolved around the Sun—therefore the term “heliocentric” (Greek helios=sun + centered). (In the twentieth-first century we generally accept an Einsteinian view of the cosmos.) The Book of Abraham, however, clearly delineates a geocentric view of the universe—or a belief that the Earth (Greek geo) stood at the center of the universe, and all things moved around our planet.
According to ancient geocentric cosmologies and what we read in the Book of Abraham, the heavens (which is defined as the expanse above the earth—no celestial object is mentioned to exist below the earth) was composed of multiple layers or tiers—each tier higher than the previous. Therefore the Sun is in a higher tier than the moon, and the stars are in higher tiers still (compare Abraham 3:5, 9, 17).24 According to geocentric astronomy, celestial objects have longer time spans (or lengths of “reckoning”) based upon their relative distance from the earth. “Thus, the length of reckoning of a planet is based on its revolution [time to orbit around the center, in this case the earth](and not rotation [time to spin on its axis, as the earth does every 24 hours]).”25 The higher the celestial object, the greater its length of reckoning (compare Abraham 3:5). Likewise, in Abraham 3:8-9, we read that “there shall be another planet whose reckoning of time shall be longer still; And thus there shall be the reckoning of the time of one planet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob.”
Ancient geocentric astronomers believed that the stars were “the outer-most celestial sphere, furthest from the earth and nearest to God.”26 We find in the Book of Abraham that the star Kolob was the star nearest “the throne of God” (Abraham 3:9). In the ancient, yet recently discovered, Apocalypse of Abraham (which dates from about the same time period as the Joseph Smith papyri but wasn’t discovered until after Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham), we find that God’s throne is said to reside in the eighth firmament (the firmaments, being another term for the varying tiers in the heavens above the Earth).27
The Book of Abraham also reveals that those celestial objects that are highest above the earth, “govern” the objects below them (see Abraham 3:3, 9 and Facsimile 2, fig. 5). This sounds similar to the beliefs of those who accepted an ancient geocentric cosmology:
Throughout the ancient world the governing role of celestial bodies was conceived in similar terms. God sits on his throne in the highest heaven giving commands, which are passed down by angels through the various regions of heaven, with each region governing or commanding the regions beneath it.28
We find this governing order described in the Apocalypse of Abraham and other ancient sources. All of this makes sense only from an ancient geocentric perspective (such as that believed in Abraham’s day) and makes no sense from a heliocentric perspective (which is what Joseph would have known in his day and everybody else around him believed).
A different interesting parallel comes from Facsimile 1 (Abraham on the lion couch). According to Egyptologists, this is a typical Egyptian embalming scene and has nothing to do with Abraham or sacrifice. In fact, the critics assure us, Abraham is not a topic of discussion in Egyptian papyri, and there is no connection with Abraham and the embalming lion couch.
Recent discoveries, however, suggests that the Biblical Abraham does appear in some Egyptian papyri that date to the same period as the Joseph Smith papyri. In one instance Abraham’s name appears to have a connection to an Egyptian lion couch scene.29
The stories and worldviews we find in the translated text of our Book of Abraham coincide nicely with what we find from ancient Abrahamic lore.
In Facsimile 2 the hypocephalus—and I just inserted this a few minutes before the conference started—we read that in some ancient text that Abraham is referred to as the pupil (or iris) of the of the wedjat-eye.30 This is a graphic of it here in Facsimile 2. And what’s interesting about that is that the wedjat-eye also refers to hypocephalus—to this type of graphic—and the god of the hypocephalus would have been the pupil (or iris) of the wedjat-eye. Well some of the text refers to Abraham being that pupil of the wedjat-eye so we see an obvious relationship that some saw from Abraham to hypocephali.
The other thing is that Christians in Egypt would have referred to the underworld as “the bosom of Abraham.”31 Well the hypocephalus was placed under the head basically to keep the body warm during the long night until the morning of the resurrection and also it enveloped them with the divine power of the god of the hypocephalus—well the (inaudible) Christians referred to the underworld as “the bosom of Abraham” so we see again a connection there with Jewish and Christian thought and the Book of Abraham as Joseph Smith translated it and in ancient thought on this.
Recent discoveries basically seem to bear out that Joseph Smith not as wrong the critics claim and in many instances is correct. In fact in instances that are pretty hard to guess how he would have come up with some of these interesting parallels”.
The question is, how would Joseph Smith have known these things that were not known at the time? Was he just lucky?
Isnt that amazing...
Joseph Smith was exposed as the fraud and conman that he always was...
Mohammad and Joseph Smith...
Same deceiving theme...
Same wicked lifestyle
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