Posts by Cold Steel

23

Did the Apostle Paul teach and believe in the "bodily reserrection of Christ" doctrine?

by booker-t in

i often encounter trinitarians that say all of the apostles believed in the bodily reserrection of christ.

they often point to isolated verses in the bible where jesus is called a "man" after his reserrection and this they believe is proof positive.

the seem to throw out all of the verses in the new testament that shows jesus arose "in the spirit" (1 pet 3:18).

Cold Steel

Booker-T: I often encounter trinitarians that say all of the apostles believed in the bodily resurrection of Christ. They often point to isolated verses in the bible where Jesus is called a “man” after his resurrection and this they believe is proof positive.

Sorry, Booker-T, but all the apostles believed in Jesus’ bodily resurrection. The reason is fourfold: 1) Jesus prophesied that if his enemies tore down his body (temple) that he would build it up again in three days; 2) they saw Jesus and saw that he had a body of flesh and bones (not blood, bones); 3) Jesus told them that he wasn’t a spirit, for, as he said, “a spirit hath not flesh and bone as ye see I have.” Finally, 4) he demonstrated to them that he wasn’t a spirit. He let them thrust their hands into his feet and hands, and into his side. Then he ate fish with them and shortly thereafter broke bread and blessed wine.

Thus, Jesus’ resurrection was prophesied; his disciples saw and witnessed that he had a body of flesh and bones. Jesus, himself, denied strenuously that he was a spirit and, in fact, demonstrated it to them.

By the way, I’m not a “Trinitarian” in the traditional sense; however, the scriptures tell us that Jesus was not Michael, the Archangel, but rather, the great Jehovah, the Savior, the Shepherd and Judge of the World. The Beginning and The End, and the great Intercessor between the Father (El, or Elyon) and man.

They seem to throw out all of the verses in the new testament that shows Jesus arose “in the spirit” (1 Pet 3:18).

Completely untrue. When Jesus was on the cross, he told the thief, “Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” This paradise is not heaven, but a holding place. Origen, one of the earliest church fathers and one who was considered to have one foot in the first century church and the later church, wrote concerning Paradise: “After death,” he says, “I think the saints go to Paradise, a place of teaching, a school of the spirits in which everything they saw on earth will be made clear to them. Those who were pure in heart will progress more rapidly, reaching the kingdom of heaven by definite steps or degrees.”

Peter also records: “ For...this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. ” (1 Peter 4:6) Thus, men die and are taught the Gospel of Christ as spirits. This is done so that afterwards, they may be judged in the same manner, or “according to” men in the flesh.

When Jesus was put to death in the flesh, his spirit departed and went to Paradise. There, he initiated the teaching of recalcitrant spirits who had perished in the ages before the Atonement became efficacious for them. Thus were the words of Isaiah fulfilled: “And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.” (Isa. 24:22) Also: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. (Isa. 61:2)

One verse I love to ask “BR” (bodily resurrectioners) to explain is Galatians 1:1 where the apostle Paul clearly shows that he is an apostle of Jesus not of men or a man but of Jesus. This would totally make no sense if Paul believed Jesus still had his fleshly body in heaven.

How do you arrive at that conclusion? Again, Jesus clearly wasn’t just a man; he was Yahweh, the Messiah, the Holy One of Israel, our Advocate with the Father. There is no evidence whatsoever that Jesus was resurrected as a spirit. If he had, he would have been a liar and a deceiver, and what possible reason would he have to mislead the apostles? Remember, Jesus “showed himself alive” after his resurrection, showing “many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: and, being assembled together with them, commanded them....” (Acts 1:3-4) Not only did they receive revelation via the Holy Spirit, they were receiving instructions directly from the Savior, who clearly was not a spirit.

Another scripture needing explaining is the verse in Galatians 3:26-29 where Paul says you are neither Jew, nor Greek, nor male, nor female. This shows there is no gender in heaven, and if Christ arose as a fleshly man than Paul lied in these verses.

This is a complete non sequitur.

For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

If we take this in a strictly literal way, then we all absorbed spiritually into Jesus. We lose our individualities, our genders, our backgrounds, and we are somehow consolidated physically and spiritually into Jesus, becoming literally one with him. Of course this is ridiculous. Paul is simply saying that in the Gospel it doesn’t matter it you’re a king or a queen, or if you’re a laborer, or of the House of Israel or are a gentile or if you are male or female. Salvation is available to all because we are the children of God and co-heirs with Christ.

In the resurrection, not a hair on your head will be lost. When Jesus was resurrected, his body was gone! Where did it go? He was using it. It had gone from being a thing of clay to a being of unimaginable light and glory. Instead of flesh and blood, he was flesh and bone, with spirit instead of blood. And we become one with Christ in the same way that Christ is one with the Father.

If Jesus arose in the same body he had before he died then all of his disciples would have recognized him, especially Mary Magdalene but she thought he was the gardener.

There is no “if.” The angel announced, “He is not here...he has risen!” Again, where was his body if he had not risen?

If Mary did not recognize him, and if the apostles who saw him on the road, it is a monumental non sequitur to suppose it was because he was a spirit. How about the time Jesus angered the Jews by announcing that he was the one who spoke to the ancient patriarchs as Yahweh? When in a blind fury they sought to stone him, he vanished out of their sight. How do you suppose he did that? Was he a spirit then? Or perhaps he had the power to cause people who were looking at him to not see him. That would allow him to pass through the people without being detected. Perhaps, too, he intentionally clouded the minds of the apostles so they could not recognize him. Perhaps he wanted them to see him with their spiritual eyes, for they later said that when he opened the scriptures to them, “did not our hearts burn within us?”

The resurrection has a purpose. Each of us has a spirit within our body and perhaps, together, they work to a greater purpose. Jesus, after his resurrection, was a completely different being than he was before coming to Earth. We know that through the Atonement, we all receive our bodies back, glorified and perfected. Some are raised to greater glories than others, depending on how they lived their lives, and Paul likened it to the sun, moon, and stars. And even these have varying degrees of glory as we behold them on the earth. (See 1 Cor. 15)

So yes, the apostles were all believers in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

11

Mormon's using the web to escape their cult.

by cantleave in

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/us/some-mormons-search-the-web-and-find-doubt.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

when fellow believers in sweden first began coming to him with information from the internet that contradicted the churchs history and teachings, he dismissed it as anti-mormon propaganda, the whisperings of lucifer.

he asked his superiors for help in responding to the members doubts, and when they seemed to only sidestep the questions, mr. mattsson began his own investigation.. but when he discovered credible evidence that the churchs founder, joseph smith, was a polygamist and that thebook of mormon and other scriptures were rife with historical anomalies, mr. mattsson said he felt that the foundation on which he had built his life began to crumble.. around the world and in the united states, where the faith was founded, the mormon church is grappling with a wave of doubt and disillusionment among members who encountered information on the internet that sabotaged what they were taught about their faith, according to interviews with dozens of mormons and those who study the church.. i felt like i had an earthquake under my feet, said mr. mattsson, now an emeritus area authority.

Cold Steel

It all depends on whether the bubble of happiness is founded in truth or not. When I was in school, my philosophy professor was a staunch atheist. He challenged me and other Christians about our faith and used his age and experience to try to manipulate our views. We also had to read anti-Christian and pro-atheistic books. I’d just converted to Mormonism and I weathered the storm just fine, though I took a lot of crap for it. Others, however, didn’t.

There’s a lot to be said for Jesus’ parable about the sower. If one sows seeds of doubt, and if it falls in fertile ground, then it grows and prospers. If one sows the seeds of faith, then it grows and prospers. Does that mean one should close one’s eyes to all evidence and learning? No, but it does mean that if one lives one’s life in a righteous manner and seeks the Lord when confronted with intellectual and historical doubts and misgivings that are beyond his or her ability to deal with, one can turn to God.

Peter wasn’t an educated man, yet when he told the Lord that he personally knew that he, Jesus, was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Jesus replied, “Blessed art thou, Simon...for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven.” This means that irrespective of the various intellectual pros and cons of what people were saying, that Peter knew it on a spiritual level that was beyond doubt. The same spiritual insights that Peter enjoyed also may be utilized by people today. Did Peter feel he was in a bubble? Was he happy? Alas, he is not around today to ask, but I think he was ensconced in his own bubble and that he was happy. He was no scholar, but he knew what was being bandied around about Jesus by critics of the church and he simply knew it wasn’t true.

On the other hand, I’ve been reading anti-Mormon stuff for years and I ’m happy and don’t consider myself in a bubble. But I don’t criticize those who are because I would rather take the slings and arrows of critics than to apostatize from the faith I ’ m convinced is true.

So it ’ s all a matter of point of view.

73

Bitter apostates

by Laika in

witnesses often go on about apostates being spiteful and bitter.

when you get cut off, shunned, or threatened with shunning just for the audacity of thinking differently, it's not surprising that getting angry at the witnesses is the reaction - it's like a self fulfilling prophecy.. but also, i recently posted an email from a 'friend' on this board who told me that everyone he'd spoken to about me said i had changed, become like another person.

it didn't occur to him that the day before i told my parents i'd quit the religion just 3 weeks ago, i met him for lunch, we had a good time and he didn't know anything was up.

Cold Steel

Pistoff: “If the Saints in Kirtland deem me unworthy of their prayers when they assemble together, and neglect to bear me up at the throne of heavenly grace, it is a strong and convincing proof to me that they have not the Spirit of God.” The circular reasoning is right in there with the WT.

Although I can’t speak for the WT, if one begins with the assumption (for argument’s sake) that Joseph Smith was a prophet, like Moses, then what he says makes sense. If, on the other hand, he was a shyster, his words are presumptuous, arrogant and self serving.

There are two prevailing theories among his critics: 1) that he was a charlatan and a false prophet; and 2) that he somehow believed he was a prophet, and rather than manipulating others was himself manipulated. The latter is called the “pious fraud” theory; that he fell victim to his own fantasies and bought into it.

Believers, however, are convinced that he was called of God and ordained to lead the last dispensation. Thus, if he were a prophet, then God would testify of his calling as he did the callings of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Malachi and others. And the way the Lord testifies of his servants, and his Son, is through the Holy Spirit. Thus, if Moses lost the support of his people, Israel, then it was because the people lost the testimony of God.

You won’t get an argument from me about the Jehovah's Witnesses, but if Joseph Smith was who he said he was, and if Jesus was who he said he was, namely Jehovah, the Christ, the God of Israel, then those who reject them are without the Spirit of God—in which case the circular logic is appropriate.

11

Mormon's using the web to escape their cult.

by cantleave in

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/us/some-mormons-search-the-web-and-find-doubt.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

when fellow believers in sweden first began coming to him with information from the internet that contradicted the churchs history and teachings, he dismissed it as anti-mormon propaganda, the whisperings of lucifer.

he asked his superiors for help in responding to the members doubts, and when they seemed to only sidestep the questions, mr. mattsson began his own investigation.. but when he discovered credible evidence that the churchs founder, joseph smith, was a polygamist and that thebook of mormon and other scriptures were rife with historical anomalies, mr. mattsson said he felt that the foundation on which he had built his life began to crumble.. around the world and in the united states, where the faith was founded, the mormon church is grappling with a wave of doubt and disillusionment among members who encountered information on the internet that sabotaged what they were taught about their faith, according to interviews with dozens of mormons and those who study the church.. i felt like i had an earthquake under my feet, said mr. mattsson, now an emeritus area authority.

Cold Steel

Well, the Mormon church has been written off many times before, but it's a long way from being down and out. I became LDS when I was 18 years old and within a year I knew about all these claims because they're not new. Many LDS members are disturbed because they think the church hasn't addressed it; however, published responses to all of the issues raised by Mattsson also are on the Internet.

The Romans viewed ancient Christianity in a very similar light. Pliny the elder called it a "wretched cult" and people accused the Christians of practicing magic and performing secretive, obscene rites. It bothered people that the Christian priesthood exercised authority over those afflicted with devils and Jesus rebuked them for it, explaining that if the devil's kingdom were divided, it could not stand. Thus, his opposition to it could not be a ruse for deception.

The LDS church is addressing its retention problems, even as other churches are, and our own church prophecy warns us that this will not only happen, but grow worse prior to the coming of the Son of Man. The information on both sides of these issues is available to all on the Internet and in books; however, many people are content only to take sides against the church and cite every seedy thing they can get their hands on, even when they know it's less than reliable...or even completely false. And though people like the Mattssons are well publicized in the popular press, the vast majority of the church is holding steady. In short, there will always be doubters and malcontents regardless of whatever religion or philosophy is being discussed. And though the world is full of vile cults and political, social and religious philosophies, most of our critics will never dig deep enough or be intellectually honest enough to bother looking beyond the charges of our enemies. Still, there are many who are honest and will seek on a spiritual level. And if they honestly seek, they will find, and if they find, the church of Jesus Christ will continue to grow and prosper. As Isaiah wrote, " For the terrible one is brought to nought, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off: that make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought." (Isa. 29:20-21)

See Skin Deep, by Daniel C. Peterson, for more info.

73

Bitter apostates

by Laika in

witnesses often go on about apostates being spiteful and bitter.

when you get cut off, shunned, or threatened with shunning just for the audacity of thinking differently, it's not surprising that getting angry at the witnesses is the reaction - it's like a self fulfilling prophecy.. but also, i recently posted an email from a 'friend' on this board who told me that everyone he'd spoken to about me said i had changed, become like another person.

it didn't occur to him that the day before i told my parents i'd quit the religion just 3 weeks ago, i met him for lunch, we had a good time and he didn't know anything was up.

Cold Steel

Qcmbr: Does it not strike you as both too coincidental and odd that a conman pretending to find buried treasure that is - guarded by spirits, always must be in a box, must be approached ritualistically or it will be taken away by a spirit - actually gets directed to some real treasure, in a box, buried by the ancestors of the Indians, that must be retrieved ritualistically (he had to go back on set dates) and when done improperly gets him shocked by the guardian spirit?

Uh-huh...and where are you procuring your information? Mormonism Unveiled? I would have thought you had heard these stories long before you were an Elder’s quorum teacher, if you’d been keeping your ear to the track, so to speak. I’d heard it all within a year of my baptism in 1971, when I was 18 years old. So no, I don’t have quite the same grab on it as you. Joseph Smith was a money digger, but he was hired as a money digger by others and he later admitted it didn’t pay very well. All the stuff about guarded by salamanders and various spirits is hearsay. Seems that only his enemies believed that stuff. See:

Does it not ring alarm bells that he produces a book that contains place names that coincidentally match several local ones and two direct lifts ( including a spelling from that era) from Captain Kidd legends (Camorah and Moroni), a geography that matches his local geography, a plot that contains the same storyline as a fictional book recently printed and available to the main scribe, an inaccurate description of real American flora and fauna, farcical anachronisms, direct biblical quotes (including, unique to that 1700s print bible, translation interpolations), absolutely incorrect old English usage (no real translation by scholars attempts to translate from one language into a former version of a current language), contains Greek names and words (like Christ) that are absolutely out of place in a supposed Israelite production and then tries to sell the copyright to that book to make some cash?

No, none of these ring any alarm bells because they are grossly out of kilter and are inaccurate, misleading and terribly out of date. You sound as though you knew all of the evidences but only recently found out about all this stale anti-Mormon propaganda. First, it’s the Comoros islands, not the Camorah. So all you’re down to is one name, “Moroni.” That’s it? Enough to prove that Joseph Smith made it all up? What about all the other names? And what “inaccurate...flora and fauna, farcical anachronisms” are you speaking of? Again, you’re behind the times.

I’ve already addressed the translation aspects, and that a translation is either accurate or inaccurate. Other translators of other works have done similarly, yet their translations are accepted. Again, you’ve become an enemy to the church without checking your own predilections. You find strong evidence in tiny, obscure and insignificant things and you dismiss the many detailed things that Joseph Smith got right and which no one could have possibly known in 1830.

Examples:

A rather gaudy and sensational aspect of the royal cult, which has been the subject of some recent historical novels, was that sinister mode of succession that prevailed in the earliest days, when the old king would be beheaded by the new king, who would then proceed to marry the queen. The Jaredites had hardly arrived in the Western Hemisphere, ages before Lehi’s people, when a certain princess inaugurated this system, which was unknown in later times. She did not invent it, we are told, but brought it to her father’s attention from ancient sources: “Hath he not read the record which our fathers brought across the great deep?” she said. “Behold, is there not an account concerning them of old?” (Ether 8:9). She goes on to explain the beheading to the old king, who unwittingly becomes the first victim (Ether 8:10, 9:6). Here on the borderline between the historical and the legendary, the thing to note is not the historical accuracy of the Book of Mormon, but its perfect legendary consistency. The various people who came to the New World from the Old are supposed to have brought certain traditions and legends with them, as the last instance demonstrates. The rustic youth in upper New York shrewdly included a good deal of this old apocryphal stuff in the Book of Mormon, stuff quite inaccessible to him or the world he lived in. (Source: Howlers in the Book of Mormon by Hugh Nibley.)

And how about this one, from the same source:

The Nephite prophet Moroni tells a story, which he says was common property of his people, concerning the death of the patriarch Jacob (Alma 46:24–25). I have never come across this story except in Tha’labi—who in Joseph Smith’s America had access to Tha’labi? Tha’labi, a Persian in the tenth century A.D., went about collecting old stories of the prophets from his Jewish neighbors. The story in barest outline is that when the garment of Joseph was brought to Jacob on his deathbed, he rejoiced because part of it was sound and whole, signifying that some of his descendants would always remain true; but he wept because another part of the garment was befouled and rotted away, signifying that part of his descendants that would fall away. The same story is told with the same interpretation in Tha’labi and in the book of Alma, in the latter significantly as a popular folk-tale. The presence of such a story among the Hebrews has been indicated in a recent study by a Jewish scholar, but could Joseph Smith wait until 1953 to read about it?

Here’s the same story in two different texts: the Book of Mormon and an ancient Jewish source that wasn’t even available anywhere in Joseph Smith’s day. How can you chalk this up to translation techniques or a theme from a fictional book? You take that other book and see if it has anywhere near the track record of the Book of Mormon. I bet it doesn’t even touch it.

Or how about this example:

According to the book of Ether, the first migrants to America were Asiatics who crossed the violently stormy waters of the North Pacific in eight ships constructed “like unto the ark of Noah” (Ether 6:7). To wit, they had covered decks, “and the top thereof was tight like unto a dish; ...and the door thereof, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish,” and “the ends thereof were peaked” (Ether 2:17). It was driven before the wind without sails and was often covered by the heavy seas, “for the mountain waves shall dash upon you” (Ether 2:24). Within the strange ships, men and animals were safe, as “they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind” (Ether 6:5)

The oldest accounts of the ark of Noah, the Sumerian ones, describe it as a “magur boat,” peaked at the ends, completely covered but for a door, without sails, and completely covered by the waters from time to time, as men and animals rode safe within. But the remarkable thing about Jared’s boats was their illumination by stones which shone in the dark because they had been touched by the finger of the Lord (Ether 3:6, 6:3).

The Rabbis tell of a mysterious Zohar that illuminated the ark, but for further instruction we must go to much older sources: the Pyrophilus is traced back to the Jalakanta stone of India, which shines in the dark and enables its owner to pass unharmed beneath the waters; this in turn has been traced back through classical and Oriental sources to the Gilgamesh Epic, where Alexander’s wonderful Pyrophilus stone turns up as the Plant of Life in the possession of the Babylonian Noah.

Show me just one of your criticisms that match any of the above. Or chiasmus, which is an astounding evidence. Again, it would take days or weeks to construct a text with the chiasmic complexity found in the Book of Mormon. How did Joseph Smith know about it, and how did he incorporate it into the Book of Mormon? If you want to have some fun, try writing an entire book like Alma in a chiasmic style. You may start to gain an appreciation of the Book of Mormon.

Does it strike you as likely that this ‘revelator’ would tell no one, including family and co-founders of the church, of his most import vision (a direct visit to him as a 14 or 15 or 16 year old child depending upon which of the different 10 versions we use) and then suddenly tell everyone (claiming that he was quite free in telling a random minister at the time) and then follows this pattern retroactively filling in details such as his miraculous baptism, the supposed restoration of the priesthoods (try looking up the date for the restoration of the Melchizedek priesthood)?

Again, nice try but no cigar. Joseph Smith told a number of his early confidants about his “first” vision, which occurred when he was 14 years old. This topic already has been written to death about and anyone seeking truth rather than ammo can research it. But you err is saying that Joseph told no one about that vision. He told his parents about it, and he told some of the early brethren. As for the Melchizedek Priesthood ordination, the date was never recorded; however, it was very shortly after the Aaronic Priesthood restoration—perhaps days. The fact remains, if Joseph was telling the truth about the Book of Mormon, then he was telling the truth about the first vision and the restoration of the priesthood (in which case it all fits together).

Finally, do no alarm bells ring when this Book of Mormon, the ‘most correct’ book, containing the ‘fullness of the gospel’ turns out to not contain the fullness of the gospel so requiring the Doctrine and Covenants to restore the principles regarding the temple, after the atonement, the most important parts of the gospel?

No alarm bells. The Book of Mormon contains the fulness of the gospel; one simply has to know what the fulness of the gospel is. That is the relationship between justice and mercy, and Jesus’ role in satisfying the demands of both. It also includes the knowledge of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the first principles of the gospel, which is faith, repentance and baptism by water and by fire, which is the Holy Spirit, as well as the life, death and resurrection of Christ and all mankind. And finally, it takes these elements and applies them to both heaven and earth. As mankind will die and be resurrected to a higher glory, through the atonement, so also will heaven and earth pass away and then made whole through the suffering of Christ. And that is the fulness of the gospel that the Book of Mormon.

Ask yourself when was the last time you ever saw a real priesthood miracle and from your list really justify how impressive it really is or whether this could have happened without any blessing occurring. Look around your home ward and honestly ask yourself if you personally believe you have the power to heal all the sick, ill, maimed and disabled (mentally and physically) you see, and then ask yourself truly why you do not go and do it right now.

I have a certain amount of empathy over this question as it’s one of those gifts that everyone wishes they had. I haven’t given many blessings over the past, but my brother has had several blessings that have worked on his wife and children with great success. And my good friend and former bishop told me of the time he and another priesthood brother drove an actual evil spirit out of a woman. He described to me how this spirit fought him at every part of the blessing, rising out of the bed and then collapsing back. Finally she tensed, stop breathing for a moment and then fell back with a sigh totally relaxed and slept.

These healings would happen more often, I suspect, if we had the faith. In the case of my brother and former bishop, both are far more willing to lead lives of faith than me. When one has distractions like television and various entertainments and temptations, it’s much more difficult to gain the necessary Spirit.

30

When Is Armageddon? Really?

by Cold Steel in

yeah, i know that it's been just around the corner for as long as there have been corners, but my question adds just a little different twist, and that twist is: is there anything (according to the gb) that needs to take place before armageddon?

or can it happen any moment?

and what will be the first signs of armageddon?

Cold Steel

Qcmbr: Mormons do the same. For years we've been scared into buying useless food items ( in my case it was a 200 kg wheat) because (initially) the second coming was just around the corner. The high point of Mormonism’s growth was the late 70s when the fear of a nuclear war was very deeply embedded and everyone knew that was how it was going to end. With the state of the world it seemed like we lurched from one crisis to another and everyone seemed to be counting down the clock.

For someone who once was a Mormon, Qcmbr, I spend a lot of time running around correcting your flawed notions, and I’m finding that you do a lot of assuming regarding things that you purport to know a lot about.

First, how do you know Mormonism’s growth had anything to do with the fear of nuclear war? As someone who was around in those days and who remembers them quite well, it was my observation that, following the moral morass of the 60s, people began wanting religion as a way of regaining some of the stability in their lives that they missed from the 50s (which from a nuclear war point of view was far scarier than the 70s). In the United States, many were concerned by the declining standards of churches and their liberal leanings. It also was learned that the communists were infiltrating churches, and churches with strong moral and religious views coupled with top-down hierarchal structures gave people what they were looking for.

Also, why do you think our principle of food storage has anything to do with the Second Coming? At the time the direction was given, many things had to happen to precede that Second Coming. (They still need to happen, prophetically, before Christ returns.) At the height of America’s greatest economic strength and military might, President Ezra Taft Benson was prophesying that the demise of the United States would be rooted in economic instability and ruin—a prophecy which is only now, a little more than 30 years later, finally beginning to see fruition. Following the demise of the United States, Europe will fall into chaos and out of that chaos will come a dreadful world power known in the scriptures as Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38-39) and the “beast” (Revelation 11). While the church strives to build up Zion in the Americas, the beast will consolidate power in the old world. Eventually, it will make its way down to Jerusalem, where the great battle of Armageddon takes place, followed immediately by the return of Jesus Christ and the subsequent conversion of the Jews.

Our food storage, said President Benson, may be as important for us to have as boarding the ark was to Noah. And in other countries, the saints have used their food and other supplies not only for themselves during local emergencies and disasters, but their neighbors in the form of disaster relief. And most LDS say they are determined to share with their neighbors regardless of what comes. As the ancient apostles directed the saints of the first century to move out of Jerusalem before the Romans came, so the saints of this day have been warned to have their food and other supplies. It’s no more simple or complicated as that.

Armageddon also isn’t a waiting game for Mormons, nor is our food supply or the fact that we're living in the "last days" meant as a way to scare or manipulate us. It’s not dangled out in front of us like a carrot the way it is with the Jehovah's Witnesses. We’re about the creation of Zion and the salvation of the righteous just before the establishment of the Millennium.

73

Bitter apostates

by Laika in

witnesses often go on about apostates being spiteful and bitter.

when you get cut off, shunned, or threatened with shunning just for the audacity of thinking differently, it's not surprising that getting angry at the witnesses is the reaction - it's like a self fulfilling prophecy.. but also, i recently posted an email from a 'friend' on this board who told me that everyone he'd spoken to about me said i had changed, become like another person.

it didn't occur to him that the day before i told my parents i'd quit the religion just 3 weeks ago, i met him for lunch, we had a good time and he didn't know anything was up.

Cold Steel

Qcmbr: did you get a chance to read the article?

Yeah, it was a hoot! I haven’t read that stuff for a long time. Of course what makes it so amusing is that it’s all based on early anti-Mormon literature that has only been taken seriously by other anti-Mormons. Take the “Moroni And the Monkey Story” cited in the article. Why do these stories only pop up in the scandalous stories of the day? Why doesn’t Orson or Parley Pratt ever recite these ridiculous stories? Why doesn’t Brigham Young, Orson Hyde, Heber C. Kimball ever tell them? Why don’t the people who knew him best and then turned against him and conspired to murder him tell them?

I’ll be totally honest with you. The only time I suffered a crisis of faith is when that Salamander Letter came out years ago. I was in a state of shock for days. But I finally made a leap of faith and put it behind me. And when it was later discovered to be a hoax and a forgery, it taught me a great lesson: don’t give up the things you know for things you don’t know! I also recall all the bitter, disillusioned American Indian members who left the church over the DNA issue. Then when that issue turned out to work in our favor, it was too late for most of them. Had I left the church over the Salamander hoax, it would have been a wasted, life-changing event. I thank God I didn’t bail out over something that stupid, but that’s where my spiritual testimony kicked in.

Having said that, I continue to wonder whether you’re reading my posts, Qcmbr. This whole argument centering on the Comoros islands is silly considering the other aspects I brought up. Even if there were cities called “Nephi” and “Lehi” and “Alma” — it would make absolutely no difference. Why? Because no one in 1830 could have written the Book of Mormon. The evidences are so overwhelming that one has to close their eyes, put their fingers in their ears and stomp to miss them.

Oh, and speaking of Alma, even a simple name turns out to favor Joseph Smith and turn the table on his critics. For years, the church has had to battle the “experts” who maintained that Alma was a woman’s Latin name, not a Hebrew or Jewish name. In the past several decades, however, Alma was discovered on a Jewish document found in Israel dating to the early second century A.D. The name has since been shown to be even older, being attested on clay tablets found at the northwestern Syrian site of Ebla and dating to the second half of the third millennium B.C. Not only that, but the significance of the name has been documented:

Now this is a comparatively small thing, but for years it was something that was consistently thrown at us by our enemies. But even that has shown Joseph Smith to be right on target. If he were a fraud, wouldn’t new discoveries have a tendency to refute his work? Instead, they consistently sustain it. So when we have people chuck old and discredited anti-Mormon books and authors at us, of course we can’t take them seriously.

Discovering the evidences requires reading. If you read the articles I've referenced in my past several posts and you really want to know whether the Book of Mormon is true, you can get some powerful empiric evidence that it is. You also can read the Book of Mormon itself and ask God (see James 1:5; Moroni 10:4-5) and gain a spiritual testimony.

The prophet Moroni (not to be confused with the capital of the Comoros islands ) wrote:

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things.
Book of Mormon Names Attested in Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions
Further Evidence for Book of Mormon Names
Evidences of the Book of Mormon
Evidences of the Book of Mormon by Dan Peterson
Poppers: I've talked to Mormon missionaries about shunning and got them to admit that it does happen, although they said that it isn't part of their doctrine and it shouldn't be happening.
Well, yes, that’s what I’ve been saying. People are people and as long as bruised feelings exist on this earth, people will shun other people. The important thing is that the church doesn’t advocate it. It’s an anti-Christian practice that cannot in any way be done in love. Where did Jesus or the apostles ever shun anyone, particularly sinners? If we shunned people for leaving the church, I wouldn’t be chatting with Qcmbr. I’d love to see him reconsider his views and come back, but realistically it most likely won’t happen (barring heavenly intervention), but shunning people like him and others I know, and shunning people who have committed gross sins and whatever else the Jehovah's Witnesses shun for, simply isn’t productive and actually quells the Spirit.
Qcmbr: "My only local LDS friend...the same one she was told by her bishop last year she needed to be careful who she was friends with as it could affect her temple recommend.”
Seeing this is hearsay, I can’t comment on it other to say that it’s not the way of the church. Anyone who is truly interested in this topic should read Spencer W. Kimball’s Miracle of Forgiveness. The 13th president of the LDS church, Kimball spells out how we, as Christians, cannot expect the mercy and forgiveness of God unless and until we can mete it out to our fellow man.

73

Bitter apostates

by Laika in

witnesses often go on about apostates being spiteful and bitter.

when you get cut off, shunned, or threatened with shunning just for the audacity of thinking differently, it's not surprising that getting angry at the witnesses is the reaction - it's like a self fulfilling prophecy.. but also, i recently posted an email from a 'friend' on this board who told me that everyone he'd spoken to about me said i had changed, become like another person.

it didn't occur to him that the day before i told my parents i'd quit the religion just 3 weeks ago, i met him for lunch, we had a good time and he didn't know anything was up.

Cold Steel

Well, I told you you're beyond truth and reason. Everyone else I know has moved on to much better things. If you can dismiss what I've told you, then by all means I'm sure your own choice of paths will serve you well.

73

Bitter apostates

by Laika in

witnesses often go on about apostates being spiteful and bitter.

when you get cut off, shunned, or threatened with shunning just for the audacity of thinking differently, it's not surprising that getting angry at the witnesses is the reaction - it's like a self fulfilling prophecy.. but also, i recently posted an email from a 'friend' on this board who told me that everyone he'd spoken to about me said i had changed, become like another person.

it didn't occur to him that the day before i told my parents i'd quit the religion just 3 weeks ago, i met him for lunch, we had a good time and he didn't know anything was up.

Cold Steel

A lot of people were superstitious. Joseph Smith was superstitious. People are products of their environment and they don't achieve perfection or infallibility when they are called to be apostles or prophets. The apostle Paul carried with him his attitudes about women. While Jesus was very open to them, Paul never quite rid himself of his strict Jewish roots. But is a superstitious person necessarily more subject to suggestion than everyone else? How about the apostles? They all came from diverse backgrounds without the benefit of education. Do you really think none of them was superstitious? When Jesus appeared on the water, didn't Peter at first think it was a spirit?

Martin Harris was a wealthy, self-made man and he wasn't known as being an idiot. And the man saw an angel, heard the voice of God, saw the plates and other artifacts and saw the angel turn the pages of the plates. Had Joseph attempted to deceive him, he would have remembered the warnings his wife had given and most likely retreated with his money. When confronted by armed men who threatened to shoot him if he didn't recant his testimony, he opened his vest and invited them to shoot.

Believe what you wish, my friend, but very few of the early LDS leaders led peaceful, happy lives. They were imprisoned, mobbed, run out of their homes and forced to leave their property to those who ran them off. Some had their children shot in front of them, or, in at least one case, saw their children's heads bashed in. (They boasted that it saved ammunition.) The only thing that would have motivated me to stay with such a movement is that if I knew it was true. And, finally, keep in mind that Martin spent his entire wealth financing the church's interest, including publishing the Book of Mormon, which often was given away or sold well below cost.

Oh, and two others saw the angel, plates, heard the voice of God and so forth. None ever denied their testimonies, when doing so would have made them local heroes. I have some more detailed info I can send you on that if you PM me. Also, check out the following:

73

Bitter apostates

by Laika in

witnesses often go on about apostates being spiteful and bitter.

when you get cut off, shunned, or threatened with shunning just for the audacity of thinking differently, it's not surprising that getting angry at the witnesses is the reaction - it's like a self fulfilling prophecy.. but also, i recently posted an email from a 'friend' on this board who told me that everyone he'd spoken to about me said i had changed, become like another person.

it didn't occur to him that the day before i told my parents i'd quit the religion just 3 weeks ago, i met him for lunch, we had a good time and he didn't know anything was up.

Cold Steel

Qcmbr, I suspect there won’t be much to debate, as religion doesn’t offer absolute truths. I’m not sure what you have in mind when you state that I am “willfully disregarding very basic and clear cut failure points that preclude Mormonism being other than a pious fraud.” If there were such clear cut failure points, don’t you think someone would have published them by now? I also think I’d be aware of them, having made these things a matter of some study.

First, how many people would be interested in such an exchange? Second, what would be the parameters? Are we talking about the validity of the Book of Mormon, the reliability of the witnesses, the historical aspects? Geography? Or are we going to be talking moon men and Quakers? Give me a rough idea of what the discussion would revolve around, and how do we justify such a discussion on a Jehovah’s Witnesses forum.

...you completely miss the concept that the entire book betrays its construction by the constant, incorrect usage of old English forms—absolutely out of place in a translation—rendering entire sentences as contextual gibberish (a thread a while back jgnat posted an excellent deconstruction of the BoM from a linguistic POV.)

Then he certainly knew that the Book of Mormon text was strung out as one long line, just what one would expect if transcribing the translation of an ancient text. Besides, I’m unwilling to discuss the ins and outs of translations. For example, critics complain that the term “Jesus Christ” was used in the translation. After all, both “Jesus” and “Christ” are both Greek terms. If you try to hold Joseph Smith to modern translation processes, I can’t argue that. But as Dr. Hugh Nibley notes: “A translation, according to Willamowitz’s classic definition, is ‘a statement in the translator’s own words of what he thinks the author had in mind.’”

Nibley also states: “There is no such thing as a text that can be read but not translated; whoever can read a foreign language so that it means something to him can certainly express that meaning in his own words—and such an expression is no more nor less than a translation. If one cannot express it in one’s own words, one has not understood it.”

LDS scholar Dr. John Tvedtnes writes:

Jewish scholar Theodor H. Gaster intermingled KJV language and modern English in his Dead Sea Scriptures. When citing passages from the Dead Sea Scrolls that were also found in the Bible, he employed the older style of English. When Robert Lisle Lindsey began to work on the Gospel of Mark while living in Israel, he initially translated it “into simple modern Hebrew from the Greek text. The text was then distributed to Hebrew-speaking readers and comments invited.” Many of those who reviewed the work expressed “the desire that the Gospels, as ancient works, should be read in Old Testament Hebrew style.” Lindsey returned to the task and prepared a translation of Mark in biblical Hebrew that has received wide acclaim.

It is possible that the Book of Mormon would have met with the same fate as Lindsey’s modern Hebrew version of Mark had Joseph Smith rendered it in nineteenth-century English. It would not have sounded scriptural to Americans and Englishmen familiar with the King James Bible. Another reason for using the KJV verbiage in the Book of Mormon is that it makes it easier for the reader to recognize when biblical books are being quoted by the Nephite prophets. In that respect, the language of the Book of Mormon fills the same role as Charles’s translation of apocryphal and pseudepigraphic texts.

See Isaiah in the Bible and the Book of Mormon and Literary Style Used in Book of Mormon Insured Accurate Translation.

You cannot stand in judgment of those who post here, many of whom have escaped through great sacrifice, mental pain and cost a destructive cult when you yourself are part of a very elaborate, and effective cult that has robbed its people of 10% income per annum and is guilty of racism, sexism, torture, homophobia, murder, polygamy, polyandry, fraud, theft, secret practices and unfulfilled promises.

I am not your judge, Qcmbr. And if you think I’m going to get in a long, drawn out discussion of your emotional problems with the church, it’s not going to happen. Your bitterness cannot be contained and you clearly have issues. You have made your judgment of the church, and each one of your charges above represents a gross distortion of facts.

Homophobia? Why, because we don’t seal homosexuals in our temples or marry them in civil ceremonies? Tithing? Like the LDS church is the only church on the planet that teaches it? Yet you call it robbery? Actually, this is what God calls those who withhold tithing: “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house....” (Mal. 3:8-10) Look, if you want to discuss various aspects of our scriptures or doctrines, fine, but I suspect you’re cruising in charted waters. All of your criticisms have been addressed long ago.

Over the course of my life in the church, I’ve been privileged to have met some of the church’s top historians and professors of ancient scripture. I’ve taken courses from, and have known, Cleon Skousen, Richard Anderson, Truman Madsen, Hugh Nibley, Wilford Griggs, Rodney Turner, Donl Peterson, Hyrum Andrus and many others. I’ve seen, heard and read things that lead to the unmistakable conclusion that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is exactly what it purports to be (and this based only on evidence). The evidence is there for anyone who wants to dig around for it, but the real way to know is to obtain a spiritual witness of the work, and I have a strong spiritual testimony, independent of all else, that the work is true. The cognitive dissonance aspect works both ways, and were I to reject what I know, my mind would explode. It would be more productive to try to convince me that the earth was flat!

Well, what kind of evidence am I talking about? Not only the Book of Mormon’s geographical consistency with Old World deserts and byways from Jerusalem along the Frankincense Trail through the empty quarter and all the way to Bountiful, but non-Mormon sources, such as Father George McRae, onetime head of the Harvard Divinity School, who spoke on aspects of the LDS temple endowment—all the while not having any idea he was doing it! One of the most impressive evidences (and I’m tempted to use the word “proofs”) is Dr. Hugh Nibley’s DVD lecture series on the Pearl of Great Price. Of course, someone who didn’t know the church doctrines and ordinances could watch the series and not see anything in it at all. Like the proverbial pearl of great price, someone not knowing its value would esteem it of no value whatsoever, and that’s the way it was intended.

Again, I don’t stand in judgment of anyone who leaves the church, but I do find that you are far more judgmental of the Latter-day Saints than I am of people who have left.

Nugget: it isn't a matter of whose made up scriptures are better than others. There is no divinity here in either religion just control of the flock. As human beings we have the ability to think and reason to do the right thing not because of a religious rule but because we can empathise with others.

I don't see that at all. What do our general authorities gain from controlling anyone? Was this Jesus' game as well?

We can also see the injustice and stress caused by religion that fears knowledge and free thought. It is not necessary for every one to think the same way to be good people. It does not follow that because you leave bad religion you automatically become filled with bitterness and hate. On the contrary you suddenly realise how much goodness there actually is in the world around you.

I concur. But some people who leave DO become filled with bitterness and hate. They feel deceived, abused, taken. And if I felt that way, I'd probably be bitter as well. But in all my years with the LDS church I have NEVER felt like I couldn't think or reason as I chose. This book I'm reading about a guy who leaves the Jehovah's Witnesses says, in the novel, that he feels like he's fishing in a pond with no fish. I've never felt like that. After more than 30 years in the LDS church, I still feel I'm learning things that are new and fresh. The JWs keep repeating the same old things in their meetings. Yet if they're happy, I'd rather have them stay in that religion than to leave and be unhappy. I don't get the feeling that most ex-JWs feel that way.