Replies

JS took THIS to anton, and SAID he copied them from the plates.

You do NOT believe the PROPHET?

These statements are false and misleading. It was Martin Harris, not Joseph Smith who encountered Dr. Charles Anthon. Anthon recalled the meeting, but described the transcribed characters in a way that suggests that the "caracters" passed down to the RLDS were not what Anthon remembers seeing. Therefore, we are not sure what was presented to Anthon.

The RLDS, from the beginning of its organization in the 1850s, culminating in ordaining Joseph Smith III as its president, has never practised Joseph Smith's writings on baptism for the dead. These were removed to an appendix of the D&C in 1970, and removed entirely in 1990. The RLDS never accepted Smith's Book of Abraham nor Brigham Young's polygamy "revelation", purported to have been taught by Joseph Smith, as scripture. The RLDS, now Community of Christ, owns two temples, Kirtland Temple and the spiral temple in Independence, Missouri. Both of them are open to the general public. The Community of Christ does not practise secret temple rites. On display in the Independence Temple is the second, or printer's, manuscript of the Book of Mormon. It was from this manuscript that the type for the first edition of the Book of Mormon was set. (The first, or transcriber's, manuscript, has suffered extensive damage while in the care of the LDS, but about a quarter of it has been preserved on microfilm.)

There was a time when LDS leaders in Utah, because of the Book of Mormon's condemnation of the polygamy they were involved in, were on the verge of rejecting the Book of Mormon, using supposed errors in it as an excuse. But along came Martin Harris to Utah, one of the Book of Mormon witnesses, whose enthusiastic testimony about the Book of Mormon to the church membership were so impressive, that the wicked leaders had to resort to twisting a statement within the Book of Mormon's polygamy condemnation to allow for polygamy under certain circumstances, and they began to speak of the Book of Mormon as a lower law and the "revelation" on polygamy as a higher law.

Again, the wicked leaders were thwarted when Utah moved towards statehood, and polygamy had to be outlawed. This left believers in the Book of Mormon in charge, which resulted in the Mormon church publishing the book worldwide and in numerous languages.

Although I am still a critic of LDS scriptures that should not be scriptures, like the Book of Abraham and the "revelation" on polygamy, and though I dislike their temple "sealings", they have a constitutional right to their religious beliefs. Do you want their religion banned from existing? Do you think that wasting your energy verbally attacking the LDS is pleasing to God?

Now that Mormons have a reputation for happy monogamous marriages, one might see in that a fulfillment of Isaiah 1:18: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."