Sparlock is helping Mormons

by cedars 63 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Cold Steel

  All the wealth of info on this site and you can’t see how warped your similar religion is... I feel bad for you.

  In what way? Do you think the ancient Christians were warped? What religion isn't warped? First, Mormonism is not similar to the Jehovah’s Witnesses in any way, shape or form. Yes, we both have hierarchal structures, and we both believe we were established by God; however, there the similarities end.

  I don't know for a fact that this is all there is, but even if it is, that knowledge makes life all the more precious and to throw it away would be a terrible waste.

  Throw it away? Without a God it’s already thrown away. The second you’re dead, everything ceases to exist from your standpoint. Everything you experienced, everything you learned, thought about or attained to comes to absolutely nothing. All the enjoyment you gleaned from life, all the despair, achievements, wisdom—everything—is meaningless.

  I suppose it's a failure of imagination on your part to imagine an atheist could be happy, even though I am happy. To me, the prospect of eternal night is more attractive than the prospect of eternal life, which is probably a failure of imagination on my part.

  Yes to both. You may be happy now, but don’t think that atheism doesn’t cause its own cognitive dissonance. When one sees the complexity, beauty and order in the Universe and is exposed to the endless possibilities of what was, what is, and what is ahead, he realizes his wisdom is as nothing. As one ancient prophet noted, “all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion...and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.” If God can deliver on his promise of eternal happiness, and everlasting progress and power (glory), isn’t that better than eternal night?

  Is Mormonism a cult as described by Londo111?

  I clicked on the links, above, and read the article that says, yes, Mormonism is a cult and, surprise, the article is written by a former Mormon. Since I can’t accuse her as ignorant, I must, by elimination, accuse her of intentionally lying. The following is her list of what comprises, to her, a cult. But since I don’t see “American Heritage Dictionary” engraved on her forehead, we’ll just take a look at her definitions as follows. BTW, she is vocal in questioning whether there is a God, so she might agree with some of my responses.

  • The group is focused on a living leader to whom members display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.

  Just like first century Christianity

  • The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

  Just like first century Christianity

  • The group is preoccupied with making money.

  Just like first century Christianity’s “tithing.” The LDS church is known for its generosity in sending relief to disasters all over the world. We also have our own welfare system, so our members are discouraged from using government monies.

  • Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

  Of course, questioning and doubt are considered negative, but no one is punished unless they come out in open rebellion. Even then, the church works with such people, extending as much latitude as possible. In the end, the individual member decides whether he stays or goes. I would also speculate that the same was true of the ancient church.

  • Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

  Uh-huh. She includes prayer as “meditation.” The LDS church uses none of the above. I suspect this is a potshot at early Christianity as well.

  • The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth).

  None of this applies to us. Our leaders give counsel, which we admittedly follow. After all, to us they are apostles of Jesus Christ. The rest simply does not apply to us. I don’t know why she includes it unless she’s including the Jehovah's Witnesses in her little definition of “cult.”

  • The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).

  Just like first century Christianity.

  • The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.

  Again, she’s thinking of someone else. Robert Millett works with evangelical and protestant churches, and Dan Peterson is working with Muslims to preserve their most sacred writings and poetry. We’ve also worked closely with the Catholic Church on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi Library and other ancient documents. Hard to believe, but most people like Mormons. Maybe they didn’t get the memo.

  • The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).

  Just like first century Christianity.

  • Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.

  Hmmm...again, wrong cult. We have non-LDS friends, go to Christmas and birthday parties, office lunches and even date outside the church, though it’s discouraged. My wife in non-LDS and I’m a fully active member and don’t have to hide in a closet at church.

  • Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.

  See the comment above.

  So that’s it. If the author considers ancient Christianity a cult, we have to plead guilty. Ancient Christianity was established by God through Jesus Christ. So was “Mormonism.” The ancient church had an open canon of scripture. So do we. The ancient church had apostles and prophets called and ordained by God. So do we. The ancient church believes in prophecy and revelation. Same here. The ancient church sent out missionaries. So do we. The ancient church received offerings by its members. So do we. I could go on, but why take it further?

  A person could write a book replying to this nonsense.
• 

  garyneal

  Where is Qcmbr?
• 

  smiddy

  This is an excellent video , an excellent video for people who have doubts ,questions,or for one reason or another would sit through and watch the whole video. And I applaud it. Unless a person has doubts ,questions,or is some other way disallusioned ,dissatisfied or pissed off with their religion their is no way they would get past the identifying mark of their particular religion . For example once the name Jehovahs Witnesses was mentioned ,shutdown.The same would be true if JCOTLDS were mentioned ,shutdown,or the SDA ,same result shutdown.

  The principles ,concept , and aim of this video , if it could be produced without naming or identifying with any specific religion it would be tremendous in getting, hopefully to a much larger audience as it is not JUST jehovahs witnesses or mormons who are victims here,their are many such religions who prey on the vulnerable and make them captives .

  smiddy
• 

  Cold Steel

  I'm reading the book, THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TRUTH, by Tami someone, and believe me, we Mormons ain't even on the same block.
• 

  undercover

  Watched this the other day. I got the impression that this was actually an ex-JW under the guise of being Mormon, highlighting JW tactics to expose the Mormon faith so as to 'trap' unsuspecting JWs into watching the entire video without screaming, "APOSTATE!" and fleeing in fear.
• 

  Captain Obvious

  Now now Cold Steel, don't get your magic underwear in a bunch.

  Do you really believe that Joseph Smith received a divine revelation? Don't you think it's convenient that he lost the golden tablets as soon as someone asked to see them? Don't you wonder why the Book of Mormon is written in ye olde English even though it was written in the 19th century? Does Jesus not speak modern English? How do you deal with the cognitive dissonance these issues must present? I'm not comparing Mormonism to JWism or Christianity.

  I'm just trying to grasp how you can participate on this forum, reading about all of these problems not only with the JWs but with faith in general without seeing the problems within your own church?
• 

  cedars

  Cold Steel

  I recently read Going Clear by Lawrence Wright, a thoroughly good book that I would highly recommend. Though it deals with Scientology, Wright broadens his discussion in the Epilogue to encompass other religious movements - including the LDS Church.

  I would be fascinated to hear your thoughts on the following quote from pages 375-377...

  One might compare Scientology with the Church of Latter Day Saints, a
  new religion of the previous century. The founder of the movement, Joseph
  Smith, claimed to have received a pair of golden plates from the angel
  Moroni in upstate New York in 1827, along with a pair of magical “seeing
  stones,” which allowed him to read the contents. Three years later, he
  published The Book of Mormon, founding a movement that would provoke
  the worst outbreak of religious persecution in American history. Mormons
  were chased all across the country because of their practice of polygamy and
  their presumed heresy. Smith himself was murdered by a mob in Carthage,
  Illinois. His beleaguered followers sought to escape the United States and
  establish a religious theocracy in the territory of Utah, which they called
  Zion. Mormons were so despised that there was a bill in Congress to
  exterminate them. And yet Mormonism would evolve and go on to become
  one of the fastest-growing denominations in the twentieth, and now the
  twenty-first, centuries. Members of the faith now openly run for president of
  the United States. In much of the world, this religion, which was once
  tormented because of its perceived anti-American values, is now thought of
  as being the most American of religions; indeed, that’s how many Mormons
  think of it as well. It is a measure not only of the religion’s success but also
  of the ability of a faith to adapt and change.

  And yet Joseph Smith was plainly a liar. In answer to the charge of
  polygamy, he claimed he had only one wife, when he had already
  accumulated a harem. A strange but revealing episode occurred in 1835,
  when Smith purchased several Egyptian mummies from an itinerant
  merchant selling such curiosities. Inside the mummy cases were scrolls of
  papyrus, reduced to fragments, which Smith declared were the actual
  writings of the Old Testament patriarchs Abraham and Joseph. Smith
  produced what he called a translation of the papyri, titled The Book of
  Abraham. It still forms a portion of Mormon doctrine. In America at the
  time, Egyptian was still thought to be indecipherable, but the Rosetta Stone
  had already been discovered, and Jean-François Champollion had
  successfully rendered the hieroglyphic language into French. In 1966, the
  Joseph Smith papyri were discovered in the collection of the Metropolitan
  Museum of Art. It was soon shown that the passages that Smith “translated”
  were common funerary documents with no reference to Abraham or Joseph
  whatsoever. This fraud has been known for decades, but it has made little
  difference in the growth of the religion or the devotion of its adherents.
  Belief in the irrational is one definition of faith, but it is also true that
  clinging to absurd or disputed doctrines binds a community of faith together
  and defines a barrier to the outside world.

  Cedars
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  I'd often wondered why WT never attacked the Mormon Church the way it attacked the Catholic Church or other Protestants. They have too much in common.
• 

  Cold Steel

  First, Billy, I'm still waiting for someone to detail all the similarities. I've documented just how different we are. Have you read my posts?

  Do you really believe that Joseph Smith received a divine revelation? Don't you think it's convenient that he lost the golden tablets as soon as someone asked to see them? Don't you wonder why the Book of Mormon is written in ye olde English even though it was written in the 19th century? Does Jesus not speak modern English? How do you deal with the cognitive dissonance these issues must present? I'm not comparing Mormonism to JWism or Christianity.

  Yes, I firmly believe it and think there's considerable evidence to back up those claims. But let's discuss the gold plates.

  If Joseph Smith had produced the plates at the time and let everyone see them, would YOU have been converted? How would you know an angel had given them to Smith? How would you know that the plates were not just ancient American artifacts that Smith had found? And would the courts have granted ownership of the plates to Smith when he had found them on the property of the man who owned the New York drumlin? And, finally, for the sake of this discussion, how would you know that they were accurately translated?

  I have no problem with the translation. It is what it is. And if it's a hoax, it should be the easiest thing in the world for scholars of ancient scripture to discredit. At the time they were discovered, no ancient records had EVER been found written on gold or other metals. Now they've found ancient records made on gold, silver, brass, copper and other metals. The Book of Mormon was written beginning around 600 B.C., which was the right time when other records on metal plates were written.

  The Lord provides EVIDENCE of things, but very rarely does he provide PROOF. And there are many things that no man could have known in 1830. For example, one of our scholars attended a lecture on chiasmus, a parallel writing style found in complex structures in Old Testment writings. This scholar, John W. Welch, reasoned that if the Book of Mormon was genuine, it ought to have the same sort of chiasmic structures that the Old Testament did. So he began to research it that very night, and he discovered that not only did the Book of Mormon have them, but that they were some of the most complex structures found in any ancient writing, period. (See his Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon,
  Chiasmus in Helaman 6:7-13 and Chiasmus in Mesoamerican Texts). So here are just two out of literally hundreds of evidences.

  Within the last decade or so, a few LDS employees of an oil company were granted access to some of the restricted areas mentioned in the first several chapters of the Book of Mormon. With just a couple of land rovers, a compass and the accounts written by Nephi, they started off from Jerusalem using the directions found in the Book of Mormon. They and subsequent explorers not only found that Nephi had left extremely accurate directions, but that he described the inhospitable desert environs to the letter, even locating Nahum, a name place where the Lehites had buried Ishmael, one of their party. Naturally, they checked on the community's age and found that, yes, it existed in 600 B.C. Not only that, but subsequent researchers discovered in 2006 that Nahum was a burial site, and that there were remains dated back to Lehi's time. Nephi also described their encampment as being a 3-day journey from Jerusalem and, further, that it was in a mighty valley with a "river of water" that ran through it. Assuming that the party had camels, they could cover about 25 miles per day. After about about 70 miles, they found a huge granite valley with a perennial stream running through it. They confirmed, through the Department of Antiquities, that the campsite they found in the valley had potshards that dated back to circa 600 B.C. Nephi explains that one of the first things they did was to build an altar. They found not only one altar, but two. Going further, LDS geologists, anthropologists, botanists and ancient scripture scholars found that Nephi's account did not vary from that which was found thousands of years later. Even the spot where the Lehites made their tools, built their ship and lived for a number of years was found. In 1830, no one living in the United States knew of such a spot. They assumed it was all desert! It was...right up to the spot where they came into view of the ocean. Suddenly there were trees, a beautiful harbor, a "high mountain" and a cliff where Nephi's brothers tried to kill him; also, grains, fruit, game animals, ore rich in iron and honey bees.

  If I were to conclude that Mormonism was a sham...a hoax...my cognative dissonance would go off the charts. In one Book of Mormon story, a prophet comes before the Lord regarding the barges God commanded them to build. Specifically, how to light said barges. So the Lord asked this prophet, in effect, "What would you have me do?" The prophet emptied a large pouch of clear white stones and asked the Lord to touch them, so that they would produce light. How did he know to have such stones ready? No one knew it in 1830, but according to apocraphal writings later coming to "light," this is exactly how the ark of Noah was lit. (See Strange Ships and Shining Stones (A Not So Fantastic Story) and Howlers in the Book of Mormon).

  I could go on, but these things are not meant to convert. Indeed, in the Book of Mormon, a prophet prophesied that when Christ was born in the land of Jerusalem, there would be three days (in the Western Hemisphere) where there would be no sun at night, but that it would remain bright as day, and that a new star would be seen afterwards in the heavens. The enemies of the church were openly disdainful of the prophecy, and threatened violence if the promised signs did not manifest themselves. But it did happen, and skeptics throughout the land repented and many turned to the Lord. The same prophet also had prophesied that when Jesus died in Jerusalem, that there would be widespread darkness and destruction. About 33 years later, the enemies of the church, many who had seen the original sign, had turned again against the church. And the scriptures state that Satan had entered into the hearts of these people so that they no longer were impressed by that sign, and wrote it off as a natural event. Again they threatened the church if the prophecy did not come to pass. Unfortunately for them, the destructions did come and entire cities were entombed, and the wicked were destroyed by the hundreds of thousands. This was followed by a visit by Jesus Christ. Today, there are scores of traditions of a bearded white god who once visited them and promised one day to return. When Hernando Cortez and other explorers like Capt. James Cook were first seen, native Americans saw that many of their crews had beards, as did Cortez himself, and they worshipped them, respectively, as Quetzalcoatl and Lono, white gods of ancient tradition. (See The Book of Mormon as a Mesoamerican Record and External Evidences of the Book of Mormon .)

  I could go into other evidences, but like I said, they rarely convert. Methodist scholar Margaret Barker has been impressed by many things in the Book of Mormon such as the delicious white fruit described by Lehi in his vision of the tree of life. Nowhere, other than the Book of Mormon and recently discovered ancient apocraphal writings, has she seen such a reference. No such example has been found in the Bible; but though this and other things have greatly impressed her, she has no interest in converting to Mormonism.

  For other evidences, see Jeff Lindsey's website of a list of evidences of the Book of Mormon.

  Finally, forgetting all the evidences, we Mormons differ very much from the Jehovah's Witnesses in one area that surpasses all the rest. We claim apostolic authority. Our leaders don't just pull doctrines out of their netherregions and present it to the people, but we believe that we are led by authorized, ordained apostles who receive the same types of revelation that the apostles of old received. The GOVERNING BODY of the Jehovah's Witnesses have never had confirmation of their chosen status, never seen an angel, never had a vision, never had the Holy Spirit descend on them. They also have no witnesses who can confirm their chosen status. In truth, they're false prophets in the traditional sense of the word. We don't shun people, we don't restrict access to other churches or their literature, we have great birthday parties and we celebrate Easter and Christmas. We go to office parties, date whomever we wish, associate with non-Mormons and...did I mention that we don't shun anyone? When we do excommunicate someone, we do everything we can to win them back through fellowship and love.

  How are we similar except for sending out missionaries? Shoot, we can even differ amongst ourselves on biblical doctrine and exegesis.

  "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall
  every word be established."

  
  

  "For surely the Lord will do nothing, save he
  reveal his secrets to his servants the prophets."

  "For ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen
  you and ordained you."

  

  Gold plates in stone box, Darius of Persia.
• 

  Cold Steel

  Inside the mummy cases were scrolls of papyrus, reduced to fragments, which Smith declared were the actual writings of the Old Testament patriarchs Abraham and Joseph. Smith produced what he called a translation of the papyri, titled The Book of Abraham. It still forms a portion of Mormon doctrine. In America at the time, Egyptian was still thought to be indecipherable, but the Rosetta Stone had already been discovered, and Jean-François Champollion had successfully rendered the hieroglyphic language into French. In 1966, the Joseph Smith papyri were discovered in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was soon shown that the passages that Smith “translated.”

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtjT7YQz3mI

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EHKY1NUmcg