Touchstones of reason failed by Mormonism

by Qcmbr 10 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  Qcmbr

  Sorry , I said I'd post this last week but I played pc games with my bro instead. My bad.

  Simple basic errors in the Mormon meme that are missed by active members.

  • History. Book of Mormon purports to describe actual historical events most notably two huge civilisations on the Americas , one of which is Israelite. Small , insignificant elements - such as a possible location for a campsite - aside, all the events described in the book are refuted by archaeology, genetics, linguistics and geography.
  • Fraud. The Book of Abraham purports to be a record written by Abraham using Egyptian. At least one fragment of the original exists and it, along with the printed facsimile are well known and translated standard funery texts. The words 'revealed' do not match the actual translation and the meanings ascribed are incorrect. The fabricated additional drawing shows an understandable lack of knowledge regarding Egyptian mythology.
  • Polygamy and Polyandry. Joseph secretly married women, some of whom he threatened / bribed in private meetings, including at least one 14 year old but perhaps worst of all some women already married. This is inexcusable.
  • Masonry. Masonry is nothing to do with any real workmen from Israelite temples. It is a relatively modern secret society with handshakes, aprons, initiations and blood oaths. Joseph became a mason. The temple ceremony he revealed is a shameless copy. This supposedly eternal ceremony has been radically altered multiple times within the last hundred years to fit with modern sensibilities ( removed blood oaths, nude bathing etc).
  • Money. Church leaders die wealthy. Church gives less than 1% revenue to charitable causes. All top church leaders have all expenses paid, have travel, holidays, cars, homes, education, jobs ( lucrative jobs on boards of church businesses) and interest free loans courtesy of church. Church has built shopping centre costing more than all charitable donations ever used. Church runs hunting lodges, financial institutions, communications businesses etc. It has no need of tithing to support itself. It requires tithing to access the highest degree of heaven.
  • Morality. Mormonism has been on the wrong side of major social immorality. Racism. Homophobia. Sexism. Mormonism supports immoral and irrational concepts such as killing your children / people if a voice in your tells you to. Genocidal war. Death for apostasy. Lying for the Lord ( being dishonest to Gentiles - in particular over polygamy but often used to avoid legal issues.) Electro shock aversion therapy.
  • Stupidity. Quaker style moon inhabitants. Never going to reach moon. Adams alter. Greek Psalter incident. Kinder hook plates. Egyptian grammar and alphabet. Lamanite warrior burial mound. Cumorah is impossibly located. Immortal 3 Nephites. Garments offer physical protection. Tithing as fire insurance. No coke ( caffeinated drinks.) No beards. White shirts. No women in pants. No contraception. Sex only for procreation. Masturbation leads to homosexuality. Earth is 6000 years old. No evolution. Seer stones and revelation via stone in a hat.
  • Reality. Mormonism purports to have actual revelation, visions, seers, prophecy, healing power, the gift of tongues etc. No one in the Mormon church heals anyone, ever ( a real healing would make national news) , no revelations are currently being received ( surely there are plenty of topics god would like to talk about), no one uses the gift of tongues , no prophecy occurs , so called prophets could not discern the Hoffman fraud and spent large sums to buy problematic forgeries, the members of the church are no different from everyone else ( they divorce, get ill, suffer bankruptcy just the same as everyone else.)

  • The tide has turned. Church growth has been falling long term but, wherever the Internet is ( anonymous access to information and the ability to question) the church demographic is radically altering as fewer converts join and more teens leave. The church is aging. Dominos are falling ( Sweden is a very visible crack in the wall.) 10 years and it will be a broken force with increasingly fundamentalist strongholds unless it does a CoC, renounces crazy and descends into mainstream Christian mediocrity.

  If a real church of a real god existed it would be involved in a very different set of challenges than those listed above.
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  garyneal

  I watched the movie called "The God Makers" which you may or may not be familiar with. Some of the points you highlighted were also highlighted in the film. They also mentioned that there were multiple accounts of Joseph Smith's encounter in the woods with God. One had him seeing Jesus alone, another with a multitude of Angels, and another with God and Jesus alone (which I think is the official account). Is there truth to this?
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  cantleave

  So you are saying it is another bullshit cult? Shame I was starting to be convinced by Cold Steel.
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  Qcmbr

  I suspect we are seeing the moment before the implosion.
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  slimboyfat

  "Lying for The Lord" do they actually use that phrase? Is it like Theocratic warfare? Witnesses don't use that term much these days.
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  slimboyfat

  Why do you say Sweden is a weak point? Sounds interesting. I was under the impression that, aside from Britain, Mormon numbers in Europe are very low.
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  Qcmbr

  Hans Mattsson was a big defection that has the community buzzing. Apparently something bigger is due October.
• 

  adamah

  Qcmbr said:

  I suspect we are seeing the moment before the implosion.

  Allow me to suggest that you're likely projecting your personal wishes and perspective onto others, and assuming that since YOU'VE personally seen enough evidence you're assuming that OTHERS can see it, too, and will come to the same conclusion as you did. That's a LONG series of assumptions to make, based on the bias of placing rationalism above all.

  If I had a pence/pound every time someone predicted the triumph of reason over irrational emotions I'd be a rich man by now. :) Heck, Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet in 1800 called the "Age of Reason", calling for the same thing, and that was over 300 yrs ago.

  So why is religion bigger than ever in 2013, where a recent poll shows that 80% of Americans insist that God has to be involved in human evolution?

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2375035/Only-1-5-Americans-believes-human-beings-evolved-guidance-God.html

  The "reason" is that religion appeals to MANY OTHER non-rational factors, such as emotions; it's not all about rational thinking for MOST believers. Religions understand that, and that's exactly WHY they use social control measures like shunning, ex-communication, etc, to bolster the goofy thinking.

  I know an LDS elder who is an intelligent and highly-educated professional (he's an optometist who prescribes glasses and other optical devices), yet he apparently sees no problem with believing that Joseph Smith used miraculous 'seer stones' to translate Egyptian into English and receive Divine inspirations. This guy deals with optics on a DAILY BASIS, but unless those seer stones were actually prototypes of Google Glasses with an internet connection, it's not a rational belief.

  I doubt he actually believes in 'seer stones', but he's acutely aware that he's a member of a cultural sub-group where his patients believe in it and are committed to agreeing to certain beliefs, so he goes along to get along, where part of the price of admission is holding one's mental nose in order to swallow irrational beliefs.

  And to think LDS is going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg and admit to being one of a long line of religions that have engaged in an ancient scam flies completely contrary to human nature. It's not IMPOSSIBLE, just that it seems extremely unlikely to me (eg the organizational structure of LDS and JWs with governing bodies is DESIGNED to prevent such an event from happening). Is there ANY major religion which has admitted to being a bunch of hog-wash, or where the person who admitted it wasn't quickly demonized and distanced as an outsider (eg Franz)?

  Hence we'll likely see a continuation and/or growth in those religions that decide to modify their theologies to resolve conflicts between rational and non-rational factors, eg by incorporating evolution into their beliefs, while still holding onto belief in a God who kicked off the process. That's the whole goal of 'scientific creationism', easing the dissonance of the more rational and educated believers by insisting on forcing their God into the test-tubes of science in public education, while demanding it still be labeled as 'science'.

  The practice of blending new beliefs into the old theology once popular opinion and knowledge of the natural World demands it is called 'syncretism', and it's a trend that's as old as the hills, following quite predictable steps.

  Nowadays, it starts when science conclusively shows the sheer silliness of some theologically-based claim or belief (eg God said that men think with their hearts in Genesis, or the Earth was flat, or at the center of the Universe, or has a dome-shaped solid firmament, etc). Then when that position is shown as being silly and contradictory to scientific evidence (eg brain, not heart was shown in 400BC to be center of cognition by Hippocrates), the fallback position then becomes claiming it was only a metaphorical belief or poetic use, and not meant as literal truth. Jesus didn't LITERALLY mean that hand-washing before eating didn't have any benefits, etc.

  The downgrading of claims of literal truths into metaphorical/spiritual truths/figures of speech will hopefully continue, until HOPEFULLY someday the entire Bible may be realized to be metaphorical (at which point a new religion is likely to have taken it's place, and filled that niche or void).

  You'd think the process of reason triumphing over emotion and superstition would be complete by 2013, but as I said in another thread, the existence of groups like the Flat Earth Society seems to suggest there's still a long way to go.

  Adam
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  Qcmbr

  You may be right. I've just never seen the LDS church taking so many hits and losing so many core members. I have several open discussions both socially and on facebook with still active members and most express a sense of bewilderment and are simply falling back to testimony statements ('I feel the spirit', 'I know its true' etc.) The level of discussion (in the 'old' days you never discussed any doubts) , the amount of information and the number of highly committed individuals leaving is unprecedented.
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  Qcmbr

  If you feel like reading the transcript of the Swedish meeting that has shaken things up.

  http://www.roadkilldelight.com/NOM/SFMJRT.pdf