Mormon church-owned company buys huge swath of Florida land

Orlando Sentinel ^ | November 7, 2013 | Kevin Spear

[greyfoxx39]

The Mormon church stands to own nearly 2 percent of Florida by completing a deal to buy most of the real estate of the St. Joe Co. for more than a half-billion dollars.

The megapurchase was announced jointly Thursday by a corporate representative of church, which owns the nearly 295,000-acre Deseret Ranches in Central Florida, and by the real-estate and timber business, which has built several communities along the Panhandle coast.

[Elsie]

What part of “they sell the excess” from their welfare needs did you not understand?

I 'understand' that there are STILL hungry people in the world, and you religious organization decides to SELL the excess.

[Elsie]

• I don’t think I should even finish reading this thread.

  Bye.

[Elsie]

driveling sanctimony...

[Elsie]

Hey!

You DIDN’T quit the thread!

[Elsie]

We were separated at BIRTH!!!

[Elsie]

Mormons are Christians???

[Colofornian]

We were separated at BIRTH!!!

Not necessarily. (It doesn't take rocket-science discernment to see Bert's attempted one-upsmanship driveling sanctimonious utterances)

[bert]

The correct usage in bert’s style manual is “drivelous sanctimony”

[Vigilanteman]

FWIW, I make a mental note as to whom the idiots are and don’t even bother reading what they have to say, much less responding to it. Outside of that group, however, I do meet some interesting and well-informed people on these threads.

[Ripliancum]

Of course I won't name them, that is not my place, nor is it yours to know unless it is shared with you.

But if you want a sample of what you and your groups efforts are doing, here's a few indicative references.

--------------------------

“So, spurred on by angry anti-LDS FReepers, I decided to check things out for myself and had been reading about the church doctrine and history...”

--------------------------

“I refuse to get bogged down in the anti-Mormon garbage on FR - the anti-Mormon garbage that led me to the Church in the first place! Do you honestly think you will change anyone’s mind by engaging in their hate-filled rhetoric?...”

--------------------------

“...one reason I started looking into the Church was because of all the anti-Mormon posts on FR. I didn't know much about Mormons and couldn't understand what they had done to deserve such invective, so I decided to investigate. I didn't plan on converting, but I guess Heavenly Father had other plans for me. I'm sure some of their heads would be spinning right off if they knew their hate had led me to the Church...”

[Ripliancum]

I ‘understand’ that there are STILL hungry people in the world, and you religious organization decides to SELL the excess.

____________________________

Do you know how liberal that thought process sounds? I understand from your perspective this is probably just an anti Mormon site to you, but it’s a Conservative web site, espousing conservative principles...

You know, like the parable of the talents...

Give a man a fish all you want to, that doesn’t lift others up for too long. Building programs that do, long term, are conservative principles.

[Ripliancum]

Yes, against my better judgement, I get sucked back in from time to time, but mostly I try to ignore. You’re a better man that I am.

[PeterPrinciple]

What would Jesus say?

---

He comments on this in Revelations, chapter 1 and 2.

[svcw]

Seriously?

[svcw]

I have never seen an anti-mormon post, I have seen many posts exposing mormonISM - they are the same

[flaglady47]

“I didn’t.
I see...

There’s an awful lot of Muzzies down there in Florida, which I find worrisome.”

Actually, I find you worrisome. Almost like a stalker.

[Elsie]

Do you know how liberal that thought process sounds?

No; but I know how GREEDY selling 'food for the hungry' for PROFIT sounds!

[Elsie]

'The correct usage in bert’s style manual is “drivelous sanctimony” ', said someone; smugly.

HMMMmmm... FR's spellcheck don't seem to like your wording...

[Elsie]

FWIW, I make a mental note as to whom the idiots are and don’t even bother reading what they have to say, much less responding to it.

---

"Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives, and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned;

and I will go still further and say, take this revelation, or any other revelation that the Lord has given,

and deny it in your feelings, and I promise that you will be damned.

Brigham Young - JoD 3:266 (July 14, 1855)

[Elsie]

“...one reason I started looking into the Church was because of all the anti-Mormon posts on FR. I didn't know much about Mormons and couldn't understand what they had done to deserve such invective, so I decided to investigate.

I just LOVE it when people thoroughly investigate things!

---

---

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).

Joseph Smith: "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 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).

 

 

 

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).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "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) and: "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).