helix400, I lived in Utah for 4 years. Many of my friends are mormon, and I think they are good people. But if you want to know what mormon's believe, asking a mormon is a terrible way to go. First of all, a good majority of them aren't familiar with many doctrines of their own church. It's kinda sad, but the church itself informs it's members on a sort of 'heirarchy' basis, so the only people who are really in the know are those who have temple recommends or have gone on missions. And, if you aren't in their trust, those in the know won't share their church's 'secrets' with you. They are very good at telling people what will make the church look good as opposed to the truth.
Second, the church itself doesn't really give it's followers a chance to know the true history of it's church. It's kind of sad that it's own members don't even realized that the church was more or less actively rascist until they switched stances in order to get the government to recognize them as a religion. This finally allowed them to get their precious tax exempt status. The mormon church is very fiscally oriented. I also know a lot of mormons who don't believe that Joseph Smith was a polygamist in life. They believe that all these women were married to him after his death to preserve their place in heaven. If you actually look up these marriage records, though, Mr. Smith was alive and kicking.
Mormons believe the leader of their church is spoken to directly by God. That is their excuse for changing their rules all the time when it fits the political needs of their church. They also believe that polygamy is still practiced in heaven. The reasoning behind this is that 'more women than men make it to the kingdom of God', so polygamy is the only way to make everyone happy. A lot of mormons don't know that, but you return missionaries know what I'm talking about.
They also believe in 3 levels of heaven, and the best parts of heaven are restricted to those who are married and sealed in the temple. The only way for a woman to get ther is to ride her husband's coattails. Pretty sexist if you ask me. And, Ghandi, I don't care how much peace you've promoted. You're out!
Mormons also believe in baptising dead folks into their church to 'save' them. It doesn't really seem to matter what the wishes or faith of the passed are. There in!
Mormons also believe that the Book of Mormon is a higher and more correct testament of Jesus than any part of the Bible is. Missionaries will spin this to you in a much more subtle way, but in their religion, the Bible is flawed, and their books(the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine of Covenants) are perfect.
I see mormon people as people who honestly believe that they are pursuing a higher good. I see their church itself as a lying, brainwashing and corrupt orginization, though.

redsoul
Mormons believe the leader of their church is spoken to directly by God. That is their excuse for changing their rules all the time when it fits the political needs of their church

kinda like the pope? i dont think the vatican infers a 'mouth piece of god' title directly on the guy in the funny hat, but without a doubt they claim him infallible (which flies right in the face of a few choice lines on the fallibility of *all* man, 'cept jesus, in romans 3)... and doctrine changes according to whim or political neccessity.

i wonder if any old school catholics are still burning in hell for not repenting about that cheeseburger on a friday? its a-ok to do it now, but i wonder if those that partook of the forbidden burger prior to the change are still burning in hell ;)

not saying ones better than the other, but i do find it interesting when other christian sects look down on mormons as wacky... when their faith has many of the same dressings, just different specifics.

heap, I'm an atheist. I truly beleive it's all fairy tales and myths. I just think what other people believe in and why they do so interesting. I do understand the place of religion in society. I think it's run will decline as we begin to understand the dynamics of the universe. Spirituality is a much better path, in my mind. It doesn't really condemn or make harsh judgements, just causes you to reflect.

There's a place in Mesa, AZ called Concerned Christians that tries to convert mormons (Mesa was founded by mo-mos). I went with a friend once..

He showed me a set of revelations published by the LDS church in the 70s that basically said "Christians are the devil. We must seperate ourselves from them because we are the true church.. blah blah. We are not Christians" (paraphrased). So it was the then president of the church that said this, and as president of the church he was a prophet of God and his revelations are just as sacred/true/holy/etc as the Pearl of Great Price or whatever.

The gist of it was that now that mormons are "Christian" they no longer print that set of revelations that say Christians are of the devil.

It was published by the church itself so I don't think it was biased. I've heard of a lot of "revelations" that those crazy mo-mos come up with. Like the whole black people were cursed of god (blackness=a sign of disobedience) that were revealed as incorrect as soon as MLK came around. Unverifiable, I guess.

Anyway, the only mormons I am friends with are jack-mormons, and they are cool. They're the first to admit how messed up their religion is and for the most part they resent the pressures their parents put them through to be active in the church.

ALSO.. they have mormon seminaries here (mormon classes at public junior highs and high schools run by the LDS church off-campus) and one time a friend and I had to take a note to a kid in one of the classes. So we were escorted to the classroom by a guy in a suit and tie and he had to UNLOCK the classroom to call the mormon kid out. That was weird. Why would they need to lock classroom doors? So we chatted for awhile with the mormon kid while the suit glared at us and we started to get the picture that he didn't want us there.

Best part: as he walked us to the front door, we passed by a drinking fountain. My friend asks the guy "Is that Holy Water?" and the guy laughs and says no. And he says "Good.. cuz I'm a vampire and I can't drink Holy Water." Then he starts growling and walking around like a zombie (arms straight out, staggering). Of course I figure what the hell and I join him, staggering around and groaning too. It was so random/hilarious. I made it through without laughing but the guy's face was priceless. He was pissed. We cracked up outside and ran across the street to get back to non-mormon grounds.

So in conclusion, when I think about mormons, I think about my friend asking the mormon guy about holy water.



Uh.. if you were confused, my friends and i call mormons "mo-mos" here because it just seems like the thing to do. and i try to cry out "holy joseph smith!" whenever something crazy happens. it keeps the mo-mo student council on their toes.

wow, huge post. I could go on about mormons all day

yah, wasn't meaning to infer you as a follower of any faith, redsoul... just your comment brought that to mind.

i dont think i fit into the category of atheist... i do believe there is some kinda higher power out there.... just i have a hard time believing that any one of the organized religions have a single thing to do with it. i think i fit into the same category as you on finding the rigamarole of organized religion interesting as opposed to insulting.

as long as they stay off of my porch, to each their own, i guess.

AMEN, heap. AMEN.

Q. What happens to a mormon when they are excommunicated from the LDS church?
A. They get a 10% pay raise, sundays off, and they get to choose their own underwear.
(ummm...if I offended any mormons with this joke, THEN LEARN TO LAUGH AT YOURSELVES A LITTLE!)

Hey, at least they aren't Catholic.

Geeze, talk about screwballs. Don't even get me started about the Catholics.

col.forbin, it was a pair of 'seer stones' the magical (I'm not sure on the spelling of these) Ummim and Thumim that Joseph 'hook 'em while they're young' Smith used to translate the tablets.

My tombstone will read "If any Mormon comes and baptizes my grave, I swear to God, I'll f***in haunt their ass forever" or something along the lines of that. Oh, and the next time a Mormon comes to my door, I'll do the same to them as I do to telemarketers...answer the door, politely excuse myself (a pot of water is bowling, something excusable), sit and watch TV, check back later to see if they are still there.

Carthage Illinois

Helix400,

I appreciate your willingness to discuss, so I'll both apologize for and throttle back my confrontational tone :) I've lived in Utah for nearly ten years and my frustration with church politics gets vented once in a while.

As far as my position being one sided, perhaps it is, but the honest truth is that I just can't find any plausible explanations being offered for these things by Mormon apologists. It's the same way when you start discussing polygamy or racism. The church's policy seems to be to ignore and/or sweep under the carpet these inconvenient issues and "move on" in their words to more important things. Or what I'm told is if the BoM says there were elephants in upstate New York 1700 years ago, then I don't care what this new fangled science says, there were elephants.

The few answers I have heard have been ambiguous and implausible, and tend to make a mockery of Occam's Razor, like the two Cumorahs theory. I do hear a great deal being made of anything that can be even remotely linked to the BoM story, but apart from a handful of anecdotal possibilities, the fact remains that there is little or no archeological or anthropological evidence to support the BoM. If you can point me to some, I promise you I will examine it objectively, but I still have to remind you that mass cultural migrations inevitably leave traces, and there are no traces in the new world of Egyptian or Hebrew culture apart from coincidental similarities which are made use of not only by Mormon apologists but the Atlantis and UFO crowds too.

Additionally, there's Joseph Smith's personal history as a "treasure seeker" which some would interpret as con man. A letter from a noted Eqyptologist in the Smithsonian still exists in which the Professor describes a visit from Oliver Cowdery asking him to examine some characters that Joseph had copied from the tablets, claiming that they were reformed Egyptian. A copy of those characters still exists, as well. The professor noted that they were a mix of roman, greek, cyrillic, and nonsense characters, some turned strange directions, but nothing more than scribblings. There was no known linguistic connection. When Cowdery told the professor that it was his intention to sell his farm to finance the publication of the book being translated from these characters, the professor warned him that he was being conned. The rest is history, but it's interesting to me that Cowdery and his brother, along with the others, went ahead with this thing even though they knew it was not real. They were hoping for a little profit from book sales.

Of course there's the whole book of Abraham thing, and then you have look at the fact that the BoM has undergone some 1800 revisions since its original publication. I find it interesting that a divinely translated book should require so much editing.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have it out for Mormons, but I have it out for all dishonest religion. I come from a fundamentalist holy roller background, and I'm just as pissed at them for feeding me a line of BS. As a consequence I take it upon myself to intrude with harsh reality when people start spouting nonsense religion, since, it seems to me, organized religion is nothing more than a way to control people and their money. Taking the mormons again, look what happens when they build a temple in Brazil with black money and black labor. Or what happens when the government comes and boards up your temple and confiscates the land around it because you will not renounce polygamy (that happened in the late 1800's, for those not aware, the US government acutally came and seized the Temple and about then is when the then president of the Mormon church got the revelation from God that polygamy was no longer permitted; Utah was then admitted to the union.)

But before you accuse of me of having an axe to grind and thereby being less than objective, let me point out that the process of going from pentacostal preacher to where I am now required a whole lot more honest objectivity that most people can muster when blinded by religion. Most of that started when my logical mind kept pointing out that the story of Noah's flood as written in Genesis could not possibly be true, and you can bet at that stage of my life I wanted real bad to be able to believe the creation scientist crackpots. After struggling with that for a long time I realized that the value of scripture is personal rather than universal, and that the majority of it is symbolic rather than literal. When that personally interpreted symbolism starts impacting my life because someone is trying to cram it down my throat, then I set out to try to find out what's real out of self defense. Ten years of living with Utah politics taxing my sin and my property to pay for their procreational irresponsibility while seeking every possible way of limiting my freedom of speech and freedom of choice according to their belief system, you can bet it gets a little personal, and objectivity is hard to maintain.

Still, if you have any plausible evidence to cite for the historicity of the BoM, I'd love to hear about it. You'd honestly be the first person to come through with any.

akulaalfa
I thought I was the only one who caught the Maher reference..

grizzly - 1800 revisions? History as a treasure seeker? Man, you are just quoting out of the standard anti-pablum. As enlightened on Utah as you claim, I would have thought you would be above the usual BS statements.

Rockdrummer, he made a lot of other valid points. But you bon't want to acknowledge those, do you?

umm...bon't=don't. whoops. Seriously, I have been shown by many friends trying to help me spiritually 'evidence' of the book of mormon, and it is all circumstantial and ridiculous! Grizzly is often well studied on the subject, and he has lived in Utah for 10 years! seems to me he might know a little bit about the state.
And, drummer, since you probably do know a lot about Utah, can you tell me what purpose the colony of St. George served back in the Brigham Young days?

Was the single question that grizzlyjohnson just asked completely ignored?



Wow, nothing better than pointing out a couple of debatable remarks in his post. I would say that he did a pretty good job justifying his "treasure hunter" statement with facts (opposed to just saying, "Hey, he is a golddigger! Yeah!"). I still havent seen anyone defend their stance from his accusation that the "translation" was nothing but a steaming pile of donkey poop.



Personally, I would like to hear his inquiry answered... but judging from what I have seen so far in this thread, I won't hold my breath.



*hangs head in shame for even posting in a discussion as fruitless as this*

Awesome... on a roll here with the html screwups.

Hey, zarthsan...You probably won't get your answer. Even a missionary at your door would just tell you to pray about it. There's nothing solid to back it up, and mormons are really good at convincing through mob mentality. They feel good about the fact that everyone else in their ward agrees, so they accept implausible as proof and judge people who say other things. The sword is double edged, though. They get judged as well. I think it's just really easy to believe whatever you've been taught since birth, and to believe 'evidence' if you really want to make it true. As long as there are sheep, some sucker like Joseph Smith will round 'em up.
And no disrespect to Gordon B. Hinkley. I'm sure that he truly believes in the doctrines, and no matter what, that conviction is respectable. Joseph Smith, though...what a power abusing b*stard.

When arguing with missionaries, and the family of my mormon ex-girlfriend who were hell-bent on converting me to Mormonism, this little site came in handy.

http://www.exmormon.org/tract2.htm

DelRay Caldoun here.

Run, don't walk, to go buy this book: "Under the Banner of Heaven", by Jon Krakauer. Fascinating look at the religion's history, Mormon fundamentalism (polygamists), and how easily religious extremism can make people do horrible things.

EvilBobRoss: read the book, and you'll change your tune on the never worrying about getting shot or stabbed part.

my mormon name is "the one mighty adn strong"
where does that get me?

Pleased to meet you, my name is Clester Auto.

Sounds like an auto body shop in Fayetteville Arkansas.

Too bad we're done having kids, or this would be the next name in line.

Grizzly, et al.

Just reading over the comments posted after I retired for the evening. Well stated.

A few minor points.

Native Americans did in fact have agriculture, which is why corn/maize is cultivated today. But you are correct, no chariots, no African or Indian elephant remains as one would expect to find, no tribes with a distinct Hebrew accents or Hebrew artifacts similar to those found at other sites inhabited by Jews. Nothing but the word of Joseph Smith to prove any of it.

Nothing has been stated here about the role Mormon bankers played in the creation of Las Vegas. More than anyone else, including probably the Mafia dons, the Mormons have benefited from the existence of "Sin City". This has nothing to do with whether Joseph Smith was just another middle-aged white guy going through a mid-life crisis, but it is interesting to note.

Also, organized religion is about more than a way to control people and their money. It's about a bargain one makes with others. "We believe in the same things, the world is a pretty crappy place, tell ya what, I've got your back if you've got mine." In the best of all worlds the 10% of your income that most all Christians are suppose to contribute can consist of anything from the value of your time to actual cash. Some people actually do tithe very strictly, but it's not suppose to be about accounting (you gave only 7.8% of your income this year so you're going to Hell), it's suppose to be about helping others. If the so-called leaders of the church take a percentage of the percentage, it should be because they are providing you with a safe place to meet and some pleasent facilities while you are there. It would also be nice if they didn't have to struggle to live while doing so. No one is suppose to be getting rich off it either. That some people do is disheartening, and unChristian.

--h

"under the banner of heaven" was bizarre, sordid, and wonderful. i loved every page of it.

bow 'bout them lafferty boys?

Nicely put, Grizzly Johnson.

Sorry Mormon farkers, the propaganda YOU have been spoon fed since birth is the unreality.

Sad, but true.

No angels, and your nutty forebears were run out of every place they tried to set up shop. Mormonism is nothing more than a cult, which is to say, just as silly as any other religion. Your defense of the completely bogus BoM is hilarious - you are the 18th century Scientologists.

BYU yanks Sports Illustrated On Campus because of pic of bare bottoms. Because it might lead to dancing

You are confusing Mormons with Southern Baptists. If you are going to slander someone at least get your stereotypes correct.

A better title would have been:
BYU yanks Sports Illustrated On Campus because of pic of bare bottoms. Because it might lead to smoking and drinking coffee.

Ogger- "my mormon name is "the one mighty adn strong"
where does that get me?"

It gets you excommunicated. Nevertheless, I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Rockdrummer,

grizzly - 1800 revisions? History as a treasure seeker? Man, you are just quoting out of the standard anti-pablum. As enlightened on Utah as you claim, I would have thought you would be above the usual BS statements.

Both of those statements are corroborated by non-Mormon sources. Prior to his career as a prophet, Smith used peep stones, a seeing stone placed in a hat, to find treausre. As far as the 1800 revisions, all you need to do is find an older version of BoM to see that's the case. Strangely though, they're hard to find, since the Church tends to hoard them and make them disappear.

I'll provide citations for both of those things if you make me, but I'd rather you did your own research, you might find it enlightening. Suffice it to say that if you find my other points to be well considered and well researched, you should assume that I'm not taking anything at face value without checking it out. Thing that a lot of Mormons don't understand is that the Church has no problem whatsoever with revising history, and they have no problem telling you things aren't true that are true in order to make those revisions stand. A prime exampe is polygamy. The Church is constantly trying to inject doubt into whether Joseph and Brigham (!) practiced polygamy, and whether it was at any time a doctrinal mandate. I had a recently returned missionary tell me not long ago that all he knows is the church never practiced polygamy and we'd have to ask Brigham if he did or not. That's reprehensible as it's a well documented fact that both Joseph and Brigham had multiple wives, and in fact Joseph practiced what historians generously call polyandry (rather than simple adultery) because many of the women that Joseph "married" were already married to his friends, and stayed married to those friends. All this is attested in various records and personal journals of those involved.

So if you can find me a non-biased, historically attested source that effectively disputes the allegation that Joseph was a con man, and show me an 1800's version of the BoM that's identical to today's, I will certainly listen to what you say, but I need more than "the Church says it ain't so". The Church has no qualms about bending, and sometimes breaking, the truth, or at least redefining the word to their purposes such that us poor gentiles will never understand what it means.

oh crap....uh I meant to link and not IMG SRC. uhh please delete it. you can ban me or whatever

Not as bad as the time someone accidentally (?) img srced some grandma porn. Ewww.

Anyway, as for the Mormon religion: I must say that there are worse religions. IE, many fundamentalist protestant denominations. But why would anyone join a church that demands 10% of your income. (And bills you for it)

As a sidenote: You know how how Mormons are really into genealogy? That's because they are trying to find out the names of their dead and living relatives so they can "baptize by proxy." You may be a Mormon and not know it.

Wuapinmon,

I understand that the Mormons fled the east to try to find a place of their own, but I disagree with motives. In fact Joseph Smith and his henchmen were so obnoxious that they got run out of town everywhere they went. It's my personal opinion that Brigham was quite relieved when Joseph finally bought it in that shootout while escaping from jail. Joseph was a charismatic personality but not much of an organizer, but as a leader, Brigham Young was an absolute genious.

At the time of the migration west, there had been two or three books published describing the land west of the Mississippi River, and Brigham decided that the area just west of the Rockies would be a good place to start his own country. He was not the only person to be bitten with this bug, John C. Fremont wanted to be king of California. Brigham's motive for moving west were to start his own nation of Deseret as a religious state. Upon arriving in Utah and declaring "this is the place" (at which many of his followers making the trek wrote in their journals some version of "WTF?!? There's nothing here!") he quickly sent out colonists to settle the area around, including most of Utah, Southern Idaho, Western Wyoming, Nevada, and all the way into Southern California. What he failed to realize was that he would not get the foothold he needed to maintain his country before Manifest Destiny caused the United States federal government to roll over him like a steamroller.

Although an organizational genius, Brigham was not a military mind, and although he fought (quite a dirty fight), he did not win, and died before the thing was resolved. Two presidents of the church later, it was clear that the only thing that was going to happen to Utah was statehood, and on the terms of the US government, not the Mormon Church.

However, this transfer of land that you describe really was the salvation of the LDS church, rather than its downfall, because had the land stayed as part of Mexico, and therefore Spain, the Catholic church and the Spanish inquisition, which was active well into the 1800's, would have wiped the Mormons off the face of the earth.

mr_crink:

bring me wives and i will send you newsletters

I have mormon cousins.. distant distant cousins. And I just know after I kick the bucket they're going to track me down and make me a post-mortem mormon. That's messed up. We need a national do-not-baptize-for-the-dead list so I can keep my ghost from having to sit through hours of BoM teachings and quilt-making.

Some of the mormon girls at my high school were pretty hot so it kinda sucks that they have to make spirit babies for eternity. The lame-o mormon guys have a pretty good deal, though. If they are good enough they get to be gods on their own planets and produce the spirit babies with those hot, hot mormon babes. Temple marriages and secret names! It's all true. Of course, I checked official mormon doctrine a few hours ago so it might be updated by now.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but the pic in the magazine has more than just nekkid butts... you can clearly see approximately 45% of a young lady's left breast! 8008135 r0><0r!

Let me also say two things for the record: first, I greatly respect the LDS church as a social organization. It takes care of its people and promotes strong family ties. I think those are good things. There are just a lot of screwed up individuals that think that what's good for them is good for me too. I found out during the Main St. Plaza deabcle that there were a lot of ignorant Mormons all over the face of the earth that truly think that the Church's best interest should be held above the rule of law and the constitution, and they were perfectly willing to go to any lengths to see that done, including lying, cheating, lawsuits, and threats, and the funny thing was that the majority were completely misinformed as to what the real issues were.

To those that suggest I live someplace else, I say nonsense. I live here, and I'm entitled to live here, or anywhere I want in the United States. That's just another way of trying to take away my freedoms, which the church is always looking for new ways to do. I should expect the same freedoms here in Utah that I enjoy anywhere in the US, especially in matters of choice that don't impact anyone else. Even RockDrummer, who I assume is a musician, as am I, will admit that the Mormon influence in Utah has basically killed any possibility of there ever being a music scene of any significance in Salt Lake City. The owner of a blues club downtown which has been a landmark in SLC nightlife for many years is finally giving up because he can't make it as a bar. So what's he doing? He's making it into a strip club. Yeah, bars can't make it, but there's a huge market for naked women. Of course someone else already pointed out that if you go to nearby Wendover, NV, 90% of the cars in the casino parking lots have Utah plates. Like I said, I have nothing against the church as a social organization, but I'm up to here with hypocrisy.

Second: I'm not just down on Mormonism, I'd be happy to bash any organized religion :) Hypocrisy is universal to religion, and the Mormons certainly don't have a moritorium on it. There are plenty of states in the south where fundamental Christianity is just as intrusive as Mormonism here in Utah, as illustrated by that ten commandments nonsense that just played out recently. C'mon, religious types, it's the 21st century. It's time to quit trying to make people live by your standards and superstitions. If you want to hold certain beliefs and congregate, that's fine, but keep them to yourself. If you get in my face with them, expect me to come out swinging.

Awkward Saw,

We need a national do-not-baptize-for-the-dead list

LOL! Good idea. Go talk to the Jewish Anti-defamation league, I think they already have one going. They had a shiatfit when they found out Mormons were baptizing holocaust victims.

all you ever need to know
http://www.exmormon.org/tract2.htm
site that claims to have a copy of the 1830's version "looks kinda fake"
http://www.inephi.com/Search.htm

This is great....a photo of J. Smiths "first vision" in his own handwriting which is of course drastically different than the one mormons know today.
http://utlm.org/onlineresources/jshandwriting.htm

Well, I want to join Emperoro Jays new sect.
I usually despise and troll all faiths with equal ferver.
That being said, the mormans in this thread have shown very good nature and have been more civil than any cult uve ever seen slammed on fark.
mormans have always been nice to me in person. no other cult can say that. well, the jews, but is that a cult or a race?

I'm not flaming Mormons here so don't get the wrong idea, but I remember hearing or reading something about how Mormons don't really believe in the Christian notion of heaven. Rather, supposedly they believe that when you die, assuming god favors you, you get your own planet or something? Just curious, if anyone knows.

...Whoa, wait a minute
If I join this cult I get

1) To admit Humans came from Panspermia
2) Multiple wives
3) My own planet

That settles it, when Heir A$$Kroft starts rounding up the non devout for reeducation, Imma become a Morman...

Creep, that is an example of the highest glory. There are three levels of heaven in mormon mytholo...whoops. ummm...doctrine. The highest glory is for those that live the rules of the church as to the letter as they can, and have 13 kids but only had sex 13 times to produce them. I understand that these folks also have the whitest underwear. For those of you who don't understand what 'garments', or mormon undies are, jer2911tx posted a pretty accurate picture of what they look like at 6pm yesterday. And yeah, the highest level of heaven is to be god of your own plant.

ummm...plant=planet.