Posts by Cold Steel

19

Do Wills Ever Affect Shunning?

by Cold Steel in

a man has several sons and daughters who are active jehovah's witnesses.

so was his wife, who died two years ago.

he has since lapsed into apostasy and has been openly critical of the governing body.

Cold Steel

St. George: I remember a case of a man who left money to the WTS and was subsequently disfellowshipped. The WTS still accepted the money and fought (and won) a contested will against the man's autistic son.

The man must have forgotten to re-do his will after being disfellowshiped. If one doesn’t follow through and rewrite the will, the present will pretty much always prevails unless one can show outright manipulation of the deceased before his death. I’d love to know the details of the case, though.

For those of you out there who have not re-written their wills, for whatever reason, you’re probably locked in until you do.

I’m amazed at how much influence the Society has on things like education. Would I keep my kid in a local school so they could be under scrutiny of the Society? Ha!

From a theological standpoint, there are no eternal ramifications to sending yourself or your children to a university for higher education. If you’re an anointed Christian, you can’t be bumped down to the lower class; and if you’re not of the anointed class, you won’t be destroyed at Armageddon because you or your children sought a higher education. It just astounds me that the Society seeks as much control as it does in things that, in other churches, are a person’s personal business. What if someone just hid those details from the Society? (Like their wills, where their children go after they get out of high school, or what they do with their money, where and how long they go on vacation?)

If a person becomes a Jehovah’s Witness, how long is it before the elders and other leaders begin sticking their noses into his or her personal business? And don’t new members offer any resistance?

Skeeter1: Theocratic lying would probably trump shunning. They want your money. Honorable JWs would use it for Kingdom interests, like buying a brand new 4 door car. But, there are plenty of greedy JWs.

Do most Jehovah’s Witnesses leave the Society in their wills? Are they encouraged to? And are they encouraged to share personal info with WTS leaders? For example, if I were baptized two months ago and now my wife and I are thinking about taking our kids to Disneyland for a 10-day vacation while we visit family, a) am I already cued in enough to the WTS to know that I’m on a leash? And b) am I likely to be approached and counseled by WTS leadership? The same question would apply to education. By the time I’m baptized, am I cued in to the current position on that?

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19

Do Wills Ever Affect Shunning?

by Cold Steel in

a man has several sons and daughters who are active jehovah's witnesses.

so was his wife, who died two years ago.

he has since lapsed into apostasy and has been openly critical of the governing body.

Cold Steel

A man has several sons and daughters who are active Jehovah's Witnesses. So was his wife, who died two years ago. He has since lapsed into apostasy and has been openly critical of the Governing Body. Naturally he is disfellowshiped and his JW friends no longer speak to him.

Now this man is loaded...money up the gazoo. And he has a will. His family is supposed to give him "the treatment," but there's the matter of the money, and Armageddon just hasn't been around the last few corners.

QUESTION: Does this man's financial position affect the extent to which he is not shunned by his family, some of whom expect to inherit comfortable nest eggs? They also know the old man has a will and that he's used to being listened to and obeyed. Does anyone know of anything similarly happening in the Society? Are people more apt to be more chatty with disfellowshiped wealthy parents, or parent, than they would be if said parents or parent were dirt poor?

I don't know how many wealthy people there are in the Society, nor how much influence they wield in their respective Kingdom Halls. When wealthy members insist on sending their children to pursue higher educations, do they escape the criticisms often experienced by the lone student struggling to secure an education?

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34

Revelation written to the 1st century churches

by maccauk11 in

im suggesting revelation was not for us today but to the seven churches in minor asia.

they 1st centruy faithful ones were waiting for the promised return of messiah, like he promised them.

he did in fact return on the lcouds to take them to heaven.

Cold Steel

Maccuk11: All those things did happen and every eye did see, they came to realisation of who the messiah was when Jerusalem was destroyed. It is symbolic, metaphoric, hyperbole language. The third temple is built it is spiritual cannot be seen not made with human hands....

Okay, show me me one other prophecy where this is so. Please cite the prophecy and the fulfillment.

With all due respect, you’re stretching scripture to fit your own interpretations. When, for example, did “every eye see” and just who came to the realization of the messiah’s identity? How do you know the third temple is spiritual? When the messiah is led into the city through the East Gate of the city and into the temple, is it going to magically appear? The thing about prophecy is, once you start making things invisible, metaphoric and symbolic, you lose ALL credibility. When Zechariah wrote, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass” (Zechariah 9:9), was that fulfilled symbolically? Was it a spiritual prophecy? No, actually it was a literal fulfillment.

You’re wrong about these prophecies, and most scholars can tell which are the figurative fulfillments and which are the literal. If you have beasts, crowns, scepters, harlots, stars, dragons and such, yes, you can tell when these prophecies are apocalyptic. But when lands, earthquakes and wars are spoken of, you can pretty much figure they’re literal.

The two prophets of Revelation 11, the temple, the “beast” who seeks to destroy Jerusalem and the Jews in the end times are literal and it’s spelled out. Verse 8, for example, speaks of the death of the two prophets. It reads: “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.”

We see here a reference to “the great city.” But what city is it? The apostle says it’s “spiritually” called Sodom and Egypt, which means it will be a wicked city, but not literally Sodom and Egypt. The next verse provides the literal answer: “where also our Lord was crucified.” Where was that? It’s Jerusalem, because that’s where the Lord was crucified.

Since no prophecy is intended for any personal interpretation, the instant you say it’s not what it says it says, you’re putting your own personal spin on it. So then you have to show where it’s invisible, symbolic or metaphoric.

You also stated that one needed to understand how the Jews used apocalyptic language, and you’re correct. But your interpretation shows you lack that knowledge because apocalyptic fulfillment still needs to make sense. So if you have some “key” for unlocking these prophecies, I’d like to hear you explain how to determine when something is spiritual or literal. And why would John be asked to measure a metaphoric temple? And, especially, to leave out the outer court which will be overrun by the gentiles? How can gentiles overrun a metaphoric temple’s outer court? Are they metaphoric gentiles? Are the two prophets metaphoric prophets?

Terry: Occam's Razor calls for the simplest logical rendering of facts.

Occam’s Razor quite frequently goes dull when miracles, prophecy and speaking to God are involved. Thomas Jefferson and other great minds of his day ridiculed the idea that rocks could fall out of the sky. Jefferson is reported to have said in regard to an 1807 meteorite that reportedly fell in Weston, Conn.: “I would rather believe two Yankee professors would lie, than that stones have fallen from the heavens.” Lying, or conspiring even, was, to him, was the simplest logical explanation of the notion that rocks could fall out of the heavens. Occam’s Razor also didn’t work well when it came to the first medical doctors who were said to be quacks because they said germs could cause sickness in people. Many were disciplined for requiring medical staff to wash their hands before procedures or patient examinations.

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21

If you knew that you might have pain, suffer disasters, certainly end up dead,-- given the choice, the power, would you have prevailed upon your parents not to have brought you into the world?

by prologos in

or changed the outworkings of your ancestors' lifes to suit you?--.

Cold Steel

How do you know you didn't come here of your own free volition? Remember the Lord's words to Jeremiah: Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.Then said I, Ah, Lord God ! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. (Jeremiah 1:3-6)

Or when Jesus healed the man who was blind from birth? Master, who did sin? This man or his parents that he was born blind? (John 9:2)

If the man could have sinned before he was born, it means he most likely existed. Nevertheless, the Lord made no attempt to correct his disciples. He simply said, "Neither this man or his parents sinned," he said, explaining it was to show forth the power of God. Personally, I don't believe that God would send anyone to a world like this without first gaining their approval. Imagine sending people into hell holes all over this planet without them agreeing beforehand. The JWs teach that God creates men and women from the womb, then subjects them to hard lives and he threatens them with destruction if they don't choose the correct religion. It's not only unjust, it robs his creations of their free agency. Add to that that the Lord creates each man differently with varying intelligences, talents and opportunities, then expects them to find the "narrow path" which, the Lord himself admits, "few" there be who find it. Is that fairness? Doesn't it rob man of his free agency? What did any of us do to be treated like this? Does being all powerful justify any being to do that?

The only way it becomes just is if we had a first estate, and that we've moved from that to this "second" estate, and that we've all agreed to come to the earth for one reason or another. If the atheists are right, this is all stuff that just happens. No one's in charge.

34

Revelation written to the 1st century churches

by maccauk11 in

im suggesting revelation was not for us today but to the seven churches in minor asia.

they 1st centruy faithful ones were waiting for the promised return of messiah, like he promised them.

he did in fact return on the lcouds to take them to heaven.

Cold Steel

OP: I’m suggesting Revelation was not for us today but to the seven churches in Minor Asia. The 1st century faithful ones were waiting for the promised return of Messiah, like he promised them. He did in fact return on the clouds to take them to heaven.

And when did he return in the clouds with “all the saints” with him? We’re also told that “every eye” would see him, including those who put him to death: “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.”

The problem with your interpretation is that you’re ignoring an entire body of prophecy that has not yet happened. For example, the apostles knew that before Jesus returned, 1) Jerusalem had to be destroyed, 2) the temple leveled, right? They also knew that 3) the Jews had to be scattered throughout the nations of the earth, and that in the future, 4) the Lord would set his hand again to recover his people (see Isaiah 11), 5) the building of the third Jewish temple (Revelation 11). And they knew there must be 6) a “restoration of all things” which all the holy prophets had written and spoken about (Acts 3).

Remember that the apostles also were prophets. They knew prophecy and all the things that had to come to pass before Jesus could return. Jesus continued to teach the apostles for 40 days after his resurrection. What did he tell them? Why isn’t any of it in the scriptures? We have traditions, but the only thing we’re told is that he taught them the mysteries of the kingdom of God. If Jesus was resurrected, then we have to acknowledge that he knew what the future would be. After the 40 days he ascended into heaven on the Mount of Olives and you’ll recall that two angels stood by and told them that Jesus would one day come “in like manner” in the clouds of heaven. The two prophets in Revelation 11 were never recorded as coming, nor the despot mentioned in Ezekiel 38-39 and Revelation 16. Again, this despot was the one many of the other prophets said would come (as Ezekiel notes in 38:17-18). Since the Lord did not come to the aid of Judah when the Romans sacked Jerusalem, we can only assume it would be fulfilled far in the future!

So how could all this happen in one generation?

In my mind it’s a bit presumptuous to think one knows what these scriptures were meant for. As one scholar writes:

All the 40-day teaching is described as very secret, delivered to a closed cult group. There is no desire to intrigue and mystify, however, as with the Gnostics, but rather the clearly stated policy that knowledge should be given always but only to those who ask for it, with the corollary that the higher and holier a teaching the more carefully it should be guarded. As “the last and highest revelation,” the teaching of the 40 days was top secret, and has not come down to us.

Since Irenaeus, churchmen have strenuously denied that there ever was a secret teaching or that anything really important has ever been lost. To profess otherwise would be perilously close to an admission of bankruptcy; yet Christian scholars do concede that the Apostles had information that we do not have, allow the existence of an unwritten Apostolic tradition in the church, and grant that there was a policy of secrecy in the early church—though insisting that it began with the catechetical schools. The catechists, however, appeal to a much earlier tradition of secrecy, and when the Fathers attempt to reproduce the unwritten tradition which they claim for the church they have nothing to offer but the commonplaces of the schools. Plainly things have been lost. [Source]

In other words, I believe the first century apostles knew exactly where they were in the grand scheme of things. I don’t think they expected Jesus’ return in their day or even their great grandchildren’s day.

The modern day churches especially since the 1830s are in delusion to think it is written for us today [or] some future generation. The language used is symbolic, metaphors and hyperbole and taken mostly from the Old Testament prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah. They also used the same language which in fact was how the Jews used language to make descriptions of events.

This is an opinion, of course. One may also surmise that Ezekiel and Isaiah were written for us today. Ezekiel, after all, goes so far as to address the Beast (Gog) in Ezekiel 38: “Thus saith the Lord God; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them?”

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Messiah told those 1st century [ones] that all things would occur in their generation and it did! Just like he said. The Apostles all confirmed the expectation of Messiah’s return in their lifetime.

Uuuuugh...yeah. When did Jesus return in the clouds? What was the coming of the sign of the Son of Man? When were the two prophets killed, and who killed them? The Beast came down upon Jerusalem to destroy it, but the Lord came to the rescue of Judah and Jerusalem and destroyed Jerusalem's enemies. How did that go down?

Sorry...it just does not compute.

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12

The American Constitution versus the 'Kingdom of God'.

by yadda yadda 2 in

i thought this comparison between the american constitution and the 'kingdom of god' was very interesting from an article in this ex-mormon's excellent website http://packham.n4m.org/us-xian.htm.

the article notes how america's founding father's were deists, not bible-believing christians.. but our nation is also a system of government, not just a society.

the constitution is about government, not about society.

Cold Steel

The reason Mormons are strict constitutionalists is that it's the BEST form of government when man must govern himself. Theocracy works BEST when the leaders receive revelation from God. The kingdom in Daniel 2 implies that no human dominion will be needed as we slip into the Millennium. Also, a righteous people need almost no governing, for they govern themselves. A wicked people need despotic government to maintain peace.

Mormon prophecy indicates severe tribulation in the earth just prior to the return of Christ. Now, Israel is under the nuclear umbrella of the United States and no nation dares move against it. But the time is rapidly coming when the United States will rather suddenly cease to being a world superpower. It's ability to project military strength will decline to unsustainable levels. Then, without the United States, a major kingdom will arise (most likely in Turkey), which will consolidate power in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Then it will at some point decide to attack Israel and retake Jerusalem. That will be the great battle of Armageddon which leads to the return of the Messiah.

When the government of God is established, it will be a theocracy, with a strong connection to the freedoms contained in the bill of rights. People will have the freedom to believe as they choose and if people sin, it will be because they choose to. These are, in a nutshell, the beliefs of the LDS faith. With the return of Christ, many will be destroyed at his coming. But these will be murderers, despots, and the lowest element of people. But those who are decent, honorable people of the earth, will be spared.

Will everyone be happy with a theocracy? Probably not. But people will see the incredible improvement with the way the nations are governed. The only scriptural resistance noted by the prophets is that spoken by the prophet Zechariah, who in Chapter 14 indicates that many Muslims at first will not be cooperative with the new government. Those among those nations that will not go up to Jerusalem to take part in the feast of tabernacles will be "encouraged" to reconsider, partially through drought and physical plagues. Eventually, Zechariah states, they'll go.

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139

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

by rawe in

has anyone here left jehovah's witnesses to join the churuch of jesus christ of latter-day saints?

what was your motivation for doing so and how has it worked out?.

if you haven't joined the lds or considered it, as an ex-jw, what is your general view of the lds faith?.

Cold Steel

Randy: If you wouldn't mind selecting one of the claims, perhaps the one you find most compelling, when I get the time, I'll case it down and respond. The general theme of your claims was statements in the Book of Mormon that could not be known to Joseph Smith. Naturally any future event if specified in specific detail would qualify. Any past event, if specified in specific detail, and generally not known at the time but only re-discovered in our day would qualify.

Okay, that sounds reasonable. The greatest demonstrable point would be old world geography. This includes evidence for the first book of Nephi, so you don't have to read a great deal of the Book of Mormon. But first we'd have to agree that if someone were going to write a fictional account about an area of the world and a historic period in which very little was known (even amongst scholars) regarding the middle-eastern area, including the deserts of Arabia, the established trails and culture, writing directions that anyone with Nephi's account, a compass and a means of desert travel could follow, then having every detail of the entire journey check out with Ø errors -- that that would be an impossible achievement, even with the best maps of the day.

Just one more point. At the time Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, it's amazing to me that not one record on metal plates had ever been found, anywhere. Today, we have gold plates, silver plates, copper plates and others (mostly gold) from both the old world and the new world. And wrting on gold plates was a practice that just seemed to be starting at around 600 B.C.

So I'll PM you with some of the places you can begin your investigation.

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139

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

by rawe in

has anyone here left jehovah's witnesses to join the churuch of jesus christ of latter-day saints?

what was your motivation for doing so and how has it worked out?.

if you haven't joined the lds or considered it, as an ex-jw, what is your general view of the lds faith?.

Cold Steel

barry: The LDS invited me to their church a while ago. The missionarys told me there was a great apostacy in the early church and expected me to believe a glib statement such as this. If there was an apostacy when did it occur . Was it after Jesus left for heaven, was it after or before the complete bible was decided and the trinity doctrine was decided....

What they should have told you is that the great apostasy happened at the time the last person holding the keys of the kingdom passed from the scene and there were no more apostles. If you're looking for a specific date, no one pretends to know that. Only God. Whether you believe it or not is totally up to you. I guess it happened between the time John wrote his Apocalypse and the time all the bishops and cardinals began wearing gaudy outfits and living off the people. It also happened when revelation ceased. So perhaps it was a process.

As for being asked to pray about things you don't know, see James 1:5-8 (below). To hear anti-Mormons talk about prayer you'd think Jim Jones was going to follow things up with some Kool-Aid! Okay, if you aren't interested in Joseph Smith, or whether he was a prophet, by all means, don't pray. Don't do it and then whine about it. If you leave God alone, he'll leave you alone. It's pretty fair, isn't it?

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. -James 1:5-8

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139

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

by rawe in

has anyone here left jehovah's witnesses to join the churuch of jesus christ of latter-day saints?

what was your motivation for doing so and how has it worked out?.

if you haven't joined the lds or considered it, as an ex-jw, what is your general view of the lds faith?.

Cold Steel

Digderrido: A friend of mine left the Mormons, some of the similarities were astounding, we often compared our upbringing. He now has gone back to them, seems happy enough, though I'm guessing his pull to go back was much the same as some ex jws.

The big difference is that the LDS have considerable evidence to back their claims. Yes, things aren't perfect, but the Jehovah's Witnesses have absolutely no evidence whatsoever of their claimed divine calling.

Rawe: These 13 words, called a doxology, were a later addition to the Bible, hence modern translations do not include them. Some believe much of the Book of Mormon is based on unpublished manuscripts for another author, Solomon Spalding. Whatever the case might be, we would say Smith or Spalding likely did not know this portion of the Lord's prayer was not originally in the Bible.

According to the late-LDS apologist Hugh Nibley, our greatest scholar:

The most significant example of this freedom of composition is certainly the Lord's Prayer. "Originally," wrote Jeremias, "the doxology, 'For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever,' was absent," yet it is found in the oldest church order, the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." Has someone taken liberties with the sacred canon, then? No, "the absence of the doxology from the original text," Jeremias explains, "does not mean that Jesus intended his prayer to be recited without a word of praise at the end. But in the very earliest times, the doxology had no fixed form and its precise wording was left to those who prayed." Only "later on...it was felt necessary to establish the doxology in a fixed form," which explains why the prayer has different forms in Matthew 6:13and Luke 11:4. Also, the older Aramaic form of the prayer required forgive "our debts," which the Greek of Luke changes to forgive "our sins" vindicates both the inclusion of the doxology in the Lord's prayer in 3 Nephi 13:9-13 and the reading there of "debts" instead of "sins." [Source]

Also, another scholar notes:

Most manuscripts, although not the earliest ones, include at the end the triadic doxology, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen." This phrase (which is an excerpt from I Chronicles 29:11-13) is a plausible conclusion for the prayer: it recognizes the preeminence of God, and our total dependence upon him; it is a reminder that he is the loving King, and we the servants; and it explains why it is to him that we pray. [Source]

I’ve read sample s of Spalding’s writings and the Book of Mormon was not written by Spalding. The Book of Mormon contains numerous Hebraisms which point its ancient middle-eastern origins. These are found in none of Spalding’s known writings, nor do they appear in some of the early books you proffered. One of the more fascinating of these is chiasmus (a mirror image type construct found in detail in biblical writings). After attending a lecture on biblical chiasmus as a missionary, John Welch, now a professor of law at BYU, began looking for it in the Book of Mormon. Although many anti-Mormons say chiasmus is little more than boring repetition, Welch and numerous Bible and Book of Mormon understand and value this literary structure for its aesthetics and its power to communicate at multiple levels simultaneously.

At the time the Book of Mormon was published, no living scholar knew about chiasmus, or knew that any book claiming ancient Hebrew origins contained examples of this literary device. It was only later in the nineteenth century that Biblical chiasmus was fully recognized and described to the scholarly world. [Source]

Welch later noted:

I had long appreciated and valued the Book of Mormon, but it was not until I began to see it speaking for itself before sophisticated audiences, especially in connection with such things as chiasmus and law in the Book of Mormon, that I began to sense the high level of respect that the book really can command. On many grounds, the Book of Mormon is intellectually respectable. The more I learn about the Book of Mormon, the more amazed I become at its precision, consistency, validity, vitality, insightfulness, and purposefulness. I believe that the flow of additional evidence nourishes and enlarges faith.

Those who seek to implicate Sidney Rigdon also tend to be ignorant of Rigdon’s background as co-founder of the Campbellite movement. Alexander Campbell was furious at Rigdon for leaving his religious movement for Smith’s, and though he scourged Smith at every opportunity in print, he never impugned Rigdon’s integrity. Rigdon’s motives for joining the saints was simply that despite Campbell’s great understanding of the scriptures, he could not honestly claim any means of divine authority. Others leaning towards Campbell at the time also joined the saints for the same reason. It thus stands to reason that Rigdon’s motives for joining Smith were honest. It doesn’t follow, then, that he would join Smith, then conspire in writing a fictitious book of scripture and pawning it off to the public.

There are simply too many things Smith, Rigdon, Spalding and anyone else at that time couldn’t have known. And regardless of how compelling the evidence, ex-Mormons and anti-Mormons will never admit one shred of it. On the other hands, we LDS readily concede there are issues with the Book of Mormon and the book of Abraham, we at least have people researching them constantly. And these are professors of ancient scripture, anthropologists, archeologists, historians, journalists...and even a professor of Islamic History who, by the way, is working with leading Muslim scholars in collecting and translating old and neglected works that have heretofore been unavailable to the entire Islamic community.

I personally think there’s extremely compelling evidence for the Book of Mormon. In 1940, the Mayans were the oldest culture in Mesoamerica, which is where most LDS scholars believe the Book of Mormon events took place. This was a problem since the Book of Mormon speaks of two ancient civilizations. That was a problem. There was a Jaredite civilization that came from the great tower when the Lord confounded the languages. They would have dated from about 2500 – 300 B.C. Why was there no evidence of them?

In 1941, archeologists in Mesoamerica announced they had found an earlier culture that were much older than the Mayans. They called them the Olmecs, and they inhabited Mesoamerica between 2500 – 300 B.C. It cost the church a fortune to pay off those archeologists to invent the Olmecs civilization and where did it get us? The fact that the Mayans dated from 600 B.C. to 380 A.D. (the same time as the Nephites in the Book of Mormon) also didn’t buy us any credibility. Up until fairly recently, people stuck the Book of Mormon in my face and wanted to know where that canyon and “river of water” were in Arabia, and where that lush Garden of Eden-like “Bountiful” was in the burning desert of the Quarter. I could only tell them I had no idea. Then, beginning in the mid-1990s, they found it all. The canyon, the river of water, Bountiful, the trail Lehi took...they even found Nahom. Did the ex-Mo or anti-Mo community give us even a nod? We should live so long! Now they’ve found horses in Mesoamerica. Again, silence from our enemies. Oh, and we’ve found the barley, the wheels, gold plates and other stuff. So while it exists, we can’t force people to read it, study it or acknowledge it. Instead, I keep reading their crap about there being no evidence.

Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon

The Authorship of the Book of Mormon

Hisses from the Dust: The Gold Plates and the Recovery of Sacred Records

The Sermon at the Temple and the Greek New Testament Manuscripts

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106

No more doubts for me! Good-bye JWN! We have THE TRUTH!

by DATA-DOG in

i could go on and on about my personal journey over the last 2 years or so, but i don't need to.

everything i needed to hear to finally lay my doubts to rest happened on one meeting night.

it could only be divine providence.

Cold Steel

DATA-DOG: Only Jehovah could put his idea for M.E.P.S into a human mind. Just like the Tabernacle builders of old who received the Holy Spirit to invent never before seen "socket pedastles," the humble brothers were able to design M.E.P.S.

Hey, brother, sounds like you got hit with some of that old
time religion...some ..NEW LIGHT!!..

Now, what's M.E.P.S.?

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