Joseph Smith Death Mask Shows How MORmON GOLD PLATES story is false

You Tube.com ^ | Jan. 30, 2012 | Hockeybuss

[Colofornian]

MORmONS come up with the most insane idiocy, and then they expect others to believe it because they say so, then they get offended when others dont. LDS INC has been working very hard to keep this video blocker and off of youtube because it helps shows just how stupid MORmON claims really

[Colofornian]

As a Christian (Ordained Elder in my Presbyterian Church) and a strong Gingrich supporter, I have no idea why everyone thinks it is so cool to attack Mormons. I do not subscribe to their beliefs, but I respect them.

Well, by all means. Respect Mormons as individuals. That doesn't translate to having to respect all Mormon claims or beliefs -- anymore than you, a Presbyterian, would absolutely need to "respect" Mormonism's specific Mormon "scriptural" teaching that "Presbyterianism is not true." (Joseph Smith - History, v. 20, Pearl of Great Price "scripture") Right?

(Here, you can read it in context): Lds "scripture" - Joseph Smith History, Pearl of Great Price:

18 My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.
19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”
20 He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home. And as I leaned up to the fireplace, mother inquired what the matter was. I replied, “Never mind, all is well—I am well enough off.” I then said to my mother, “I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true.”

But, go ahead, Mindbender. Tell us that you "respect" the claim that God believes "Presbyterianism is not true" per Mormon gods' claim to "revelation" and "visions."

And then, tell us, Mindbender, how you "respect" that the 1870s' Mormons decided to forever "enshrine" this statement -- that "Presbyterianism is not true" -- as "scripture" for millions of people to read in the 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st and beyond centuries!

And then, tell us, Mindbender, how you "respect" that 20th and 21st century Mormons have been busy translating this phrase into dozens and dozens and dozens (& more) languages and spread around the world...so that the rest of the world can learn that -- supposedly -- "Presbyterianism is not true."

Why, why should Presbyterians even send out foreign missionaries since the Mormons are being so "respectful" toward Presbyterianism...You could just encourage your fellow elders across Presbyterianismland in the U.S.A. to sign a "PR" contract with all those 52,000 Lds missionaries and they could go "highlighting" a "respectful" approach to promoting Presbyterianism in even more ways.

Perhaps, Lds missionaries could...
...fly airplanes around the world -- with outstretched banners reading, "Presbyterianism isn't true."
...Or erect billboards all over the world in hundreds of languages with that same message.

What say ye, Mindbender?

[Vendome]

Who is the religious bigot?

 

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/js_h/1/17#17

  17 It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!
  18 My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.
  19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”
  20 He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home. And as I leaned up to the fireplace, mother inquired what the matter was. I replied, “Never mind, all is well—I am well enough off.” I then said to my mother,

“I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true.”

 

[caww]

I saved this some time ago but interesting thought and applicable when Mormons bellyache for our defending the Christian Faith.

As follows:

What would happen if I said that Joseph Smith, that is Miss Joseph Smith, taught the Law of Eternal REGRESSION - that we used to be Gods in the pre-existence, now we have regressed to humans, and if we are worthy, we can one day be vegetables?

And even worse, what if hundreds - even millions of Mormons started believing us?

“Now wait just a minute,” a Mormon might answer. That is not what Joseph Smith taught, and you’re not a REAL Mormon missionary.

He is absolutely right! “I would be teaching a counterfeit Mormonism and a counterfeit Joseph Smith.”

.....if even a few Mormon families were converted by us bogus Mormons, he, his Church leaders in Salt Lake City, and every other discerning Mormon would have the right to warn their own followers and the general public of the difference between our Joseph Smith and the genuine article......More than the right, they would have the responsibility to help their members avoid the trap of these “mock Mormon Missionaries.”

Hopefully, they would go beyond warning their members of our error. Perhaps they would even sit down with us and explain, from their scriptures and history why, even though “we believe in Joseph, too,” we were actually teaching an imitation Joseph Smith.

Author-—unknown-—

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

I got a girl named Boney Moroni.
She’s as skinny as a stick of macaroni.

[Vendome]

That’s right. They now want to be considered Christian not “Christians”.

One term is objectified and exclusionary to anyone who is not a member.

The other is?

[Vendome]

Missed it by that much!

[Vendome]

 

Joseph Smith continues: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from

Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith-History 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?

 [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'.

When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'?

[Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly:

"When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73);

"The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171);

"With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199);

"And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, p.24);

"Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed:

"Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

"This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses, vol.18, p.44),

"But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses, 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated:

"Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, p.167);

"Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses, 10:127).

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said:

"Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266).

"For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear:

"Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265);

"Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132);

"virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269);

"Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated:

"the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p.196).

 

 

[svcw]

Really?
You respect mormonISM and you say you are am Elder, hum?
You probably should not defend something you apparently know nothing about.
mormonISM is a bastardization and blasphemy of the Word of God.
Jesus commanded us to call out false prophets, how do you not know that? Joseph Smith is a false prophet.

[Jonty30]

It’s not how old you are. It’s how you feel.

[Big Horn]

IMO Mormons stick together.

[RicocheT]

I agree with post 8. Let’s not knock one’s religion, Mormon, Roman Catholic or what ever. I believe that faith in God, gods or an ethical way of life makes most of us better persons. We are choosing to behave in a way of living not just based on selfish individualism.

Most of us on FR do have a problem with Islam’s more radical sects such as Salafism and Iranian Shi’ism as some of those imams and followers have been killing and wounding our soldiers abroad and 9/11 was engineered by radical Islamists. The fact that a billion or more people on Earth are Islamic means we have to hope the majority of them, as time passes, reject violence against non-Islamics. Meanwhile, we have to protect our homeland.

[TexasCajun]

Can you please educate me about this "Mormon Magic Underwear" business?

I thought someone was joking but I keep reading more about it.

And will someone ask Romney if it's Magic Briefs or Magic Boxers?

[Vendome]

According to a pamphlet produced by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),

“...Mormonism is a new and emerging religious tradition distinct from the historic apostolic tradition of the Christian Church, of which Presbyterians are a part...Latter-day Saints understand themselves to be separate from the continuous witness to Jesus Christ, from the apostles to the present, affirmed by churches of the “catholic” tradition. Latter-day Saints and the historic churches view the canon of scriptures and interpret shared scriptures in radically different ways. They use the same words with dissimilar meanings. When the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints speaks of the Trinity, Christ’s death and resurrection, and salvation, the theology and practices related to these set it apart from the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant churches.”

[elcid1970]

“You’re only as old as the woman you feel.” - George Burns

;^)

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“They are not something Jesus would do. “

Well, He did attack those who pretend to be righteous while keeping others from the truth.
No different that mormonism.

Apostles Paul and Peter had no hesitation of criticizing heretics.
No different than mormonism.

Jude had no problem attacking heretics.
No different than mormonism.

By the way, God Himself had no problem destroying pagans and those of His nation who followed them...

Me thinks you are simply uninformed.

[isthisnickcool]

As the owner of blacktieswhiteshortsleaveshirtbicycletiresoddunderwear.com I think I don’t care about this thread....

[Colofornian]

Why don't we just lay off the Mormon attacks. They are not something Jesus would do.

Please tell me, then, what you think of just these verses alone (not to mention Matthew 23, John 8, etc.):

To the Sadducees: Jesus replied, “You are IN ERROR because you DO NOT KNOW THE SCRIPTURES OR THE POWER OF GOD. 30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 31 But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you... (Matt. 22:29-31)

And what about these?

Matt. 15:9: But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Matt. 16:12: ...guard against the yeast...against the TEACHING of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Luke 11:52: ... you have taken away the key to knowledge.

Maybe, as an elder of a Presbyterian church, perhaps you need to spend some more time in the Scriptures.

But hey, if you're an elder of a Presbyterian church - USA denom, I'll understand the backdrop.

[MeganC]

“That’s right. They now want to be considered Christian not “Christians”.

One term is objectified and exclusionary to anyone who is not a member.

The other is?”

Clearly, the Mormons are not Christians because they reject the tenets of the Nicene Creed that is normative for Christians.

But they wish to be called Christian because they want to be accepted in mainstream society and because it is a form of deception that their missionaries can use to insinuate themselves with the unsaved and the unknowing.

The boys on the tenspeeds have found it easier to deceive potential recruits if they can call themselves ‘Christian’ and then confuse the differences between Mormonism and, say, Methodism.

[Elsie]

In before the talking hat.

You wuz RIGHT!!

---

 

...with his face stuck in a hat.

 

---

---

"Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkned his Eyes than he would take a sentance and it would apper in Brite Roman Letters. Then he would tell the writer and he would write it. Then that would go away the next sentance would Come and so on. But if it was not Spelt rite it would not go away till it was rite, so we see it was marvelous. Thus was the hol [whole] translated."

---Joseph Knight's journal.

---

"In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us."
(History of the RLDS Church, 8 vols.

(Independence, Missouri: Herald House,1951),

"Last Testimony of Sister Emma [Smith Bidamon]," 3:356.

---

"I, as well as all of my father's family, Smith's wife, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, were present during the translation. . . . He [Joseph Smith] did not use the plates in translation."
---(David Whitmer,

as published in the "Kansas City Journal," June 5, 1881,

and reprinted in the RLDS "Journal of History", vol. 8, (1910), pp. 299-300.

---

In an 1885 interview, Zenas H. Gurley, then the editor of the RLDS Saints Herald, asked Whitmer if Joseph had used his "Peep stone" to do the translation. Whitmer replied:

"... he used a stone called a "Seers stone," the "Interpreters" having been taken away from him because of transgression. The "Interpreters" were taken from Joseph after he allowed Martin Harris to carry away the 116 pages of Ms [manuscript] of the Book of Mormon as a punishment, but he was allowed to go on and translate by use of a "Seers stone" which he had, and which he placed in a hat into which he buried his face, stating to me and others that the original character appeared upon parchment and under it the translation in English."

---

"Martin Harris related an incident that occurred during the time that he wrote that portion of the translation of the Book of Mormon which he was favored to write direct from the mouth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He said that the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone, Martin explained the translation as follows: By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin and when finished he would say 'Written,' and if correctly written that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used."
(Edward Stevenson, "One of the Three Witnesses,"

reprinted from Deseret News, 30 Nov. 1881

in Millennial Star, 44 (6 Feb. 1882): 86-87.)

---

In 1879, Michael Morse, Emma Smith's brother-in-law, stated:

 

 "When Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon [I] had occasion more than once to go into his immediate presence, and saw him engaged at his work of translation. The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face, resting his elbows upon his knees, and then dictating word after word, while the scribes Emma, John Whitmer, O. Cowdery, or some other wrote it down."
(W.W. Blair interview with Michael Morse,

Saints Herald, vol. 26, no. 12

June 15, 1879,  pp. 190-91.)

---

Joseph Smith's brother William also testified to the "face in the hat" version:

 

"The manner in which this was done was by looking into the Urim and Thummim, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light, (the plates lying near by covered up), and reading off the translation, which appeared in the stone by the power of God"

("A New Witness for Christ in America,"

Francis W. Kirkham, 2:417.)

---

"The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret was the same manner as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stone in his hat, while the book of plates were at the same time hid in the woods."

---Isaac Hale (Emma Smith's father's) affidavit, 1834.

---

---

[Colofornian]

Can you please educate me about this "Mormon Magic Underwear" business? I thought someone was joking but I keep reading more about it.

Here...you can go to this October 2003 Ensign mag article (official Lds pub): The Doctrine of Temple Work (Mormonism - Open)

Per Mormon teaching, ...One of the great privileges we have is the wearing of the garment......The garment, … when properly worn, will serve as a protection against temptation and evil. “It is expected that members will wear the garment both night and day...Members should not adjust the garment or wear it contrary to instructions in order to accommodate different styles of clothing...The garment should not be removed for activities which might reasonably be done with the garment worn beneath the clothing...