Ever consider joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

by rawe 139 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Qcmbr

  Cold Steel - no idea what your idea of a con man was: Joseph, started pretending to see buried treasure to get money out of gullible locals at a very young age (prior to his 'vision'),he wrote a book and tried to sell the copyright to make cash, started a bank and pretended it was backed by more silver than it really was (unsurprisingly it folded), had affairs with multiple women, some married and at least one with a 16 year old , adopted daughter and was shown many times to have no concept of transaltion (Egyptian alphabet, Greek psalter incident and the farcical Book of Abraham.)

  Oh and btw the church doesn't agree with your robust defence of the dna issue. They've already modified the BoM to reduce its obvious error that the Nephites and Lamanites were the ancestors of the American Indians.
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  rawe

  Hi Cold Steel,

  The two faiths are of course different. Shunning for example is a official practice among Jehovah's Witnesses, whereas it would be more of cultural expression that follows what the LDS faith teaches about former members. Nonetheless, a current JW who is in the initial stages of doubt, will find the LDS faith a close proxy of his own and visa-versa.

  The Youtube video posted on this thread showed similarities, such as the use of language like "increasing light" employed as a thought stopper. The two faiths seek to control members access to information criticial of the faith, suggesting it is like "pornography." I was fairly certain this was the case, but of course only knew the JW side, I thus had to ask on the exmormonforums.com.

  Here is the post where I thank the user Abinadi for his reference. It has the respective quotes from the two faiths.

  Thanks, that is exactly what I was looking for.....
  
  Well, if we would act so decisively to protect our children from exposure to pornography, should we not expect that our loving heavenly Father would similarly warn us and protect us from spiritual fornication, including apostasy? He says, Keep away from it! (The Watchtower March 15, 1986 p 10-15).
  
  Elder Packer said, “They leave the Church but they can’t leave it alone” (Utah State University baccalaureate address). They publish theological pornography that is damaging to the spirit. None of it is worth casting an eye upon. Do not read the anti-Mormon materials. (Vaughn J. Featherstone, member of the First Quorum of the Seventy)
  
  Cheers,

  -Randy

  ps. The greater truth to the comment "they can't leave it alone", is the leadership of these respective faiths, don't "leave alone" those who wish a graceful exit. Name removal is a constant forum topic on Ex-Mormon forums and JWs often act against those who have left. Furthermore, who are these men to suggest, it is somehow wrong for former members to speak about their life experience? Or for that matter, should it not prompt some question about why former members "can't leave it alone"? Could it be they found the experience damaging and are seeking support from fellow Ex-Members? Or are motivated to warn others?
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  notjustyet

  Had an aunt that was Df for decades and as a good Jw child, was taught to view her differenty

  and allowed that to even carry over to h children, my cousins, she after years of being dfd and shunned from her family joined the Mormons.

  NJY
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  TD

  Joseph Smith was a poor New York farm boy who did odd jobs for people to get money to plant crops...

  I believe that Cold Steel, but that seems to me to be a problem in and of itself. A poor farm boy would have little or no knowledge of Ancient Greek and wouldn't understand that the AV did not correctly translate Greek idioms like 'αμην αμην λεγω σοι....' for semantic content. A poor farm boy might not even understand that this idiom is peculiar to only one writer of the NT.

  And because of that, a poor farm boy might be tempted to borrow this expression directly from the AV without understanding that introducing a badly translated Greek idiom into what is ostensibly an Egyptian derived work harms its credibility.
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  humbled

  Never.

  It was a comment made by a young LDS woman that struck me side-ways that helped me look closely at the way the WBTS ran the Truth around on us that helped me THINK.

  I had pointed out that their succession of "prophets" frequently overturned older teachings of past prophets. To which she replied "Well, you all have a similar arrangement, don't you?"

  And I had nothing to say in reply--I knew it was true at some level. I ended up looking at old teaching of both the LDS church and the old literature of the JW's. There were other things, but this was certainly made me think hard about True Religion.
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  Violia

  No
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  dozy

  I do remember hearing about a MTS graduate who left & became a Mormon. I suspect that it is like the small minority of ex-JWs who join another religion - they still have a belief in God & the bible & are trying to replicate what they had in the JWs by embracing another community. The Mormons are pretty decent & moral people generally & I guess anyone vulnerable can be love bombed.

  Like others , what helped me out of the JWs was reading the almost identical accounts on sites like exmormon.org.

  It just seems that anyone with the element of critical thinking required to extricate themselves from the tentacles of the WTBTS would be very unlikely to join a religion like the LDS - there are so many holes in their bizarre beliefs ( the latest I heard was talking to the missionaries here & them telling me that they weren't allowed to go to the swimming pool here - I googled it & found this was an instruction that they are given ).
• 

  RubaDub

  I thought about joining so I could wear the majic underwear to parties.

  Rub a Dub
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  Cold Steel

  CantLeave: I find it hilarious that Cold Steel trolls this site, when he could do the same on an Ex-Mormon site, but he knows they would tear him apart in the same we do active dubs.

  Trolls? Moi? Ex-Mormons have already made up their minds. As far as trolling, I’ve been here since 2006, three years before you, and I joined because I’m interested in the Jehovah’s Witness religion. Check out my topics and my posts, and you’ll see that I only respond to irresponsible and ignorant statements by people who try to compare us to the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Oh, and I certainly didn’t start this topic. Why criticize someone for defending what they believe? Don’t you?

  Like it or not, there are many people here who aren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses. And there are even active Jehovah’s Witnesses here and they even post occasionally. And I tell them, welcome! The more the merrier!

  As for those “Ex-Mo” sites tearing me apart, they’ve done nothing to discredit the church if one follows the breadcrumbs all the way. And besides, they quickly ban people like me who seek to defend the church.

  If you don’t want to talk about Mormonism, great! Don’t bring it up.

  KateWild: Are you for real? You seem so over the top you must be satirical. Good job at helping young JWs leaving to see why your cult is the same. Thanks for your input.

  No problem. And yes, I’m for real. Can’t see where we’re the “same” as the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Care to elaborate? I mean, we don’t shun. We’re allowed to read whatever we want from any religion we want, attend anyone’s church, anytime. We promote, advocate and encourage people to pursue higher education, don’t force anyone to do missionary work, and we can ask difficult questions during meetings...just for meanness!

  Rubadubdub: I knew a Mormon woman at one time. Some of the things mentioned in this thread and that she told me seemed unbelievable, but it was what she believed and practiced. She told me that she couldn't pray directly to god, only her husband could pray on her behalf. That was troublesome to me at the time.

  She must be FLDS, not LDS. The Warren Jeffs cult believes this, but not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Man, if they announced that in church next Sunday by way of instruction, the women would burn the church buildings down. And I’d probably give them the matches!

  Qcmb:Joseph, started pretending to see buried treasure to get money out of gullible locals at a very young age (prior to his 'vision'),he wrote a book and tried to sell the copyright to make cash, started a bank and pretended it was backed by more silver than it really was (unsurprisingly it folded), had affairs with multiple women, some married and at least one with a 16 year old, adopted daughter and was shown many times to have no concept of translation (Egyptian alphabet, Greek psalter incident and the farcical Book of Abraham.)

  All of these have been competently addressed countless times. I can’t force you to believe otherwise, but you’re wrong on the vast majority of these. Again, check out this article. Oh, and BTW, they found the bank ledgers some time ago and Joseph Smith was cleared completely of any fault. Banks were failing all over the country and it was primarily because of the federal government undermining state banks. Geesh, do your homework!

  Sorry, guys, I hit my limit. Can only respond to so much. Just one more thing, though. Yes, Joseph Smith was a farm boy, but he never claimed to know anything about Greek or Egyptian at the time the Book of Mormon was produced. He later learned quite a bit about Greek and Hebrew, and no one knew anything about Egyptian. He tried to put together an Egyptian alphabet, but failed. As far as the translation process, he never claimed to translate using his own knowledge of language, but relied on the power of God, as Joseph's calling was that of a seer. You can find a lot about the book of Abraham on YouTube. There are a number of lectures available.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_M_Faw_s3s

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  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pIBTr-x2gs

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  OneDayillBeFree

  Nope.

  OneDayillBeFree