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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.

Sometimes 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 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?

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.

Dear Mormons who may be reading this thread,

If you peruse the Free Republic religion forums you will notice a pattern. There’s a group of Christians who spend a great deal of time posting from Official Mormon Sources - both the Book of Mormon as well as Mormon Prophets and Church materials.

You will also notice that many of these Christians are former Mormons who have left Mormonism and come to know the real Jesus Christ and His Gospel of Grace.

They have a passion to reach other Mormons to share what they learned about Salvation by grace and apart from human works.

Of course, they are attacked regularly by a very small group of Mormons who have zeal, but no knowledge beyond what the Mormon Church has told them. They also continually have a difficult time identifying any:

… Facts
… Evidence
… Logical support - that any reasonable person could understand that would validate their Mormon claims.

Really, that leaves these so called “defenders” with nothing but some links to the same old, obfuscated-party-line-MORMON-talking-points. No real thinking.

Truth can withstand examination. Mormonism cannot.

Consistently, this small group of Mormon posters are forced to face that their faith is based on little more than feelings that cannot be verified.

People deserve more than feelings.

The best they have been able to do is construct ad hominem attacks against Christians, which is always a sign that they have no facts, evidence of logical arguments. You have certainly witnessed this here many times as you read these threads, so I am not telling you anything you haven’t seen with your own eyes.

After reading both sides on this thread and others, you may very well be wondering about what you were taught when you joined the LDS church.

You also may be wondering how to resolve the lack of facts, evidence and illogical nature of Mormon claims. Many have approached those of us who are Christians asking where to find out more and some, even, to ask how to leave the Church and learn more about Christ’s Gospel of Grace.

Here are a few links to get you started in your quest to know the Biblical Christ.

http://www.irr.org/mit/default.html
http://www.exmormonsforjesus.org/
http://4mormon.org/ex-mormon.php
http://www.exmormon.org/
http://www.mormoncurtain.com/

You should also feel comfortable private freepmailing any Christians on this thread to ask questions about the concerns you have. We always do our best to directly answer your questions with facts, evidence and logical support from the Bible.

best,
ampu