what it means to be morman. do we want a man as president who believes this tripe?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Free Thinker, Oct 12, 2012.

  1. so you are saying that mormanism is a good people control mechanism?
    does it matter if its true? why does every evangelical christian denomination preach that mormanism is an evil cult?
     
    #11     Oct 12, 2012
  2. Epic

    Epic

    That's a silly question. All religions preach that competing religions are incorrect. They are competing for the same attendees. Which is true in religion is always a matter of faith and is otherwise unprovable. Most faiths that can not only survive, but also can grow throughout the years by default make a very convincing argument to a lot of people.

    Your other point is laughable. So a group is successful because their faith instills the virtues of charity, benevolence, and industriousness. Because of your prejudices, you automatically jump to mind control. It couldn't possibly be that, regardless of what you think about the history of the organization, those attempting to abide by its core tenets provide significant contribution to American society? You're too funny FT. :D
     
    #12     Oct 12, 2012
  3. the history of the organization is documented fraud. does it matter that their beliefs are true? is intellectual honesty of any value if the populace lives in a controlled manner through fraud?
    what does it say about our nation if the president cant look at a fraud documented from day one and see it for what it is?
     
    #13     Oct 12, 2012
  4. Epic

    Epic

    Free Thinker,

    You do realize that the top Mormon leaders broadcast their sermons twice a year and anyone who wants to can watch them? Go ahead and pull up their website and listen to a few.

    "Go to school and receive as much education as you can."
    "Honest day's work for an honest day's pay."
    "Be honest and dependable."
    "Help out the needy."
    "Don't just donate your money to things, be sure to give your time and build good relationships."
    "Don't do things that might result in babies out of wedlock."
    "Don't objectify women and absolutely avoid porn."
    "Treat your wives with the utmost respect."

    Oh the humanity!!! How can they preach these awful things!!!
     
    #14     Oct 12, 2012
  5. Epic

    Epic

    Doesn't matter to me at all. I don't care if they are Mormon, Atheist, Buddhist, or Muslim. What matters is how the person will govern. Mormons in prominent political positions have already easily proven their ability to govern. Anyone who says otherwise is not being honest.
     
    #15     Oct 12, 2012
  6. not surprising. intellectual honesty is something not everyone values.
    personally i want to know what is true in the world. good bad or ugly. i want our leaders to be pragmatic and use the best scientific data to make decisions. not some irrational fear that some invisible man in the sky will be unhappy if they vote this way.

    if romney is able to look at scientific data about his own religion and dismiss it, how will he govern? it speaks directly to his critical thinking ability that he is able to look at documentation as easily as i am now and dismiss it:


    Here is a summary of important facts about the Mormon church, its doctrine, and its history that the missionaries will probably not tell you. We are not suggesting that they are intentionally deceiving you --most of the young Mormons serving missions for the church are not well educated in the history of the church or in modern critical studies of the church. They probably do not know all the facts themselves. They have been trained, however, to give investigators "milk before meat," that is, to postpone revealing anything at all that might make an investigator hesitant, even if it is true. But you should be aware of these facts before you commit yourself.

    Each of the following facts has been substantiated by thorough historical scholarship. And this list is by no means exhaustive! For links to articles substantiating each of these points, CLICK on the word NOTES following the item.

    The "First Vision" story in the form presented to you was unknown until 1838, eighteen years after its alleged occurrence and almost ten years after Smith had begun his missionary efforts. The oldest (but quite different) version of the vision is in Smith's own handwriting, dating from about 1832 (still at least eleven years afterwards), and says that only one personage, Jesus Christ, appeared to him. It also mentions nothing about a revival. It also contradicts the later account as to whether Smith had already decided that no church was true. Still a third version of this event is recorded as a recollection in Smith's diary, fifteen years after the alleged vision, where one unidentified "personage" appeared, then another, with a message implying that neither was the Son. They were accompanied by many "angels," which are not mentioned in the official version you have been told about. Which version is correct, if any? Why was this event, now said by the church to be so important, unknown for so long? NOTES


    Careful study of the religious history of the locale where Smith lived in 1820 casts doubt on whether there actually was such an extensive revival that year as Smith and his family later described as associated with the "First Vision." The revivals in 1817 and 1824 better fit what Smith described later. NOTES


    In 1828, eight years after he supposedly had been told by God himself to join no church, Smith applied for membership in a local Methodist church. Other members of his family had joined the Presbyterians. NOTES


    Contemporaries of Smith consistently described him as something of a confidence man, whose chief source of income was hiring out to local farmers to help them find buried treasure by the use of folk magic and "seer stones." Smith was actually tried in 1826 on a charge of moneydigging. NOTES It is interesting that none of his critics seemed to be aware of his claim to have been visited by God in 1820, even though in his 1838 account he claimed that he had suffered "great persecution" for telling people of his vision.


    The only persons who claimed to have actually seen the gold plates were eleven close friends of Smith (many of them related to each other). Their testimonies are printed in the front of every copy of the Book of Mormon. No disinterested third party was ever allowed to examine them. They were retrieved by the angel at some unrecorded point. Most of the witnesses later abandoned Smith and left his movement. Smith then called them "liars." NOTES


    Smith produced most of the "translation" not by reading the plates through the Urim and Thummim (described as a pair of sacred spectacles), but by gazing at the same "seer stone" he had used for treasure hunting. He would place the stone into his hat, and then cover his face with it. For much of the time he was dictating, the gold plates were not even present, but in a hiding place. NOTES


    The detailed history and civilization described in the Book of Mormon does not correspond to anything found by archaeologists anywhere in the Americas. The Book of Mormon describes a civilization lasting for a thousand years, covering both North and South America, which was familiar with horses, elephants, cattle, sheep, wheat, barley, steel, wheeled vehicles, shipbuilding, sails, coins, and other elements of Old World culture. But no trace of any of these supposedly very common things has ever been found in the Americas of that period. Nor does the Book of Mormon mention many of the features of the civilizations which really did exist at that time in the Americas. The LDS church has spent millions of dollars over many years trying to prove through archaeological research that the Book of Mormon is an accurate historical record, but they have failed to produce any convincing pre-columbian archeological evidence supporting the Book of Mormon story. In addition, whereas the Book of Mormon presents the picture of a relatively homogeneous people, with a single language and communication between distant parts of the Americas, the pre-columbian history of the Americas shows the opposite: widely disparate racial types (almost entirely east Asian - definitely not Semitic, as proven by recent DNA studies), and many unrelated native languages, none of which are even remotely related to Hebrew or Egyptian. NOTES


    The people of the Book of Mormon were supposedly devout Jews observing the Law of Moses, but in the Book of Mormon there is almost no trace of their observance of Mosaic law or even an accurate knowledge of it. NOTES


    Although Joseph Smith said that God had pronounced the completed translation of the plates as published in 1830 "correct," many changes have been made in later editions. Besides thousands of corrections of poor grammar and awkward wording in the 1830 edition, other changes have been made to reflect subsequent changes in some of the fundamental doctrine of the church. For example, an early change in wording modified the 1830 edition's acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity, thus allowing Smith to introduce his later doctrine of multiple gods. A more recent change (1981) replaced "white" with "pure," apparently to reflect the change in the church's stance on the "curse" of the black race. NOTES


    Joseph Smith said that the Book of Mormon contained the "fulness of the gospel." However, its teaching on many doctrinal subjects has been ignored or contradicted by the present LDS church, and many doctrines now said by the church to be essential are not even mentioned there. Examples are the church's position on the nature of God, the Virgin Birth, the Trinity, polygamy, Hell, priesthood, secret organizations, the nature of Heaven and salvation, temples, proxy ordinances for the dead, and many other matters. NOTES


    Many of the basic historical notions found in the Book of Mormon had appeared in print already in 1825, just two years before Smith began producing the Book of Mormon, in a book called View of the Hebrews, by Ethan Smith (no relation) and published just a few miles from where Joseph Smith lived. A careful study of this obscure book led one LDS church official (the historian B. H. Roberts, 1857-1933) to confess that the evidence tended to show that the Book of Mormon was not an ancient record, but concocted by Joseph Smith himself, based on ideas he had read in the earlier book. NOTES


    Although Mormons claim that God is guiding the LDS church through its president (who has the title "prophet, seer and revelator"), the successive "prophets" have repeatedly either led the church into undertakings that were dismal failures or failed to see approaching disaster. To mention only a few: the Kirtland Bank, the United Order, the gathering of Zion to Missouri, the Zion's Camp expedition, polygamy, the Deseret Alphabet NOTES. A recent example is the successful hoax perpetrated on the church by manuscript dealer Mark Hofmann in the 1980s. He succeeded in selling the church thousands of dollars worth of manuscripts which he had forged. The church and its "prophet, seer and revelator" accepted them as genuine historical documents. The church leaders learned the truth not from God, through revelation, but from non-Mormon experts and the police, after Hofmann was arrested for two murders he committed to cover up his hoax. This scandal was reported nationwide. NOTES

    (more) http://www.exmormon.org/tract2.htm
     
    #16     Oct 12, 2012
  7. :D :D that's pretty funny coming from free.
     
    #17     Oct 12, 2012
  8. Epic

    Epic

    You know FT, you can keep going on and on about what you believe are provable facts about the incorrectness of the faith, but that doesn't change the fact that those who belong to it have an undisputed reputation for possessing the exact characteristics that we claim to want in our leaders.

    Those crazy blind Mormons sure seem to be doing something right when it comes to managing their state, raising their children, and building a very successful economy.
     
    #18     Oct 12, 2012
  9. rcn10ec

    rcn10ec

    O.K. FT, You're chasing your tail on this one as are the majority of atheists.
    All atheists claim all religion is nonsense and seem to hammer on Christianity more than any other.
    Most all your threads are directed towards Christian bashing.
    Yet, most atheists embrace Obama as leader of the country and he is a self-proclaiming "Christian".
    Why don't we ever see you atheists making a big fuss over Obama?
    And you wanna talk about Christians being hypocrites?! LOL!
     
    #19     Oct 12, 2012
  10. just today one of you guys told me that obama really doesnt believe. now you tell me he is religious. i wish you guys would make up your mind.
    and yes i think obama is too religious but i havent seen him make a decision based on what he feels the invisible guy in the sky would approve of.
     
    #20     Oct 12, 2012