Posted on 03/11/2011 3:10:59 PM PST by delacoert
In these "latter days," there are few people who havent been visited at least once by Mormon missionaries. At some point in your doorstep dialogue, these earnest young men will ask you to accept a copy of the Book of Mormon, read it, and pray about it, asking the Lord to "send the Holy Ghost to witness that it is true." Then, very solemnly, theyll "testify" to you that they know the Book of Mormon is true, that its Gods inspired word, and that it contains the "fullness of the everlasting gospel."
Theyll assure you that if you read their text in a spirit of prayerful inquiry, you, too, will receive the testimony of the Holy Ghost. That testimony supposedly will convince you beyond doubt that the Book of Mormon is exactly what they claim it to be.
Keep in mind that the missionaries want you to have a feeling about the Book of Mormon after reading it. Theyll tell you that youll receive the witness of the Holy Ghost in the form of a "burning in the bosom"a warm, fuzzy feelingafter reading and praying about it. This feeling is the clincher for them. Its the real "proof" that the Book of Mormon is inspired Scripture, and everything else follows from that conclusion.
But think about it. How often have you felt strongly about something or someone, only to learn your feelings were misguided? Feelings, although a part of our human makeup, cant be a yardstick in matters like this.
After all, some people might get a good feeling after reading anything from the Communist Manifesto or the Yellow Pages. They could pray about such a feeling, and they could take the lingering of the feeling as some kind of divine approbation, but no such sensation will prove the inspiration of Marxs or Ma Bells writings.
When you tell the missionaries you dont need to pray about the Book of Mormon, theyll think youre copping out, that youre afraid to learn the truth. Admittedly, youll seem like a cad if you simply refuse and leave it at that. You need to provide them with an explanation for refusing.
The devout Mormon believes this text is inspired because
Jesus Visited America?
Lets take a closer look at the text the missionaries offer. At first glance the Book of Mormon appears to be biblical in heft and style. Its couched in tedious "King James" English, and it features color renderings of Mormon scenes made to look like Bible illustrations.
The introduction tells you that the "Book of Mormon is a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible. It is a record of Gods dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas and contains, as does the Bible, the fullness of the everlasting gospel." There it is againthe "fullness of the everlasting gospel." Naturally, you ask yourself just what that phrase means.
According to the Mormon church, authentic Christianity cant be found in any of the so-called Christian churchesonly, of course, in the Mormon church.
Mormons teach that, after Jesus ascended into heaven, the apostles taught the true doctrines of Christ and administered his sacred ordinances (roughly the equivalent of Catholic sacraments). After the death of the apostles, their successors continued the work of the gospel, but with rapidly declining success. Within a few generations, the great apostasy foretold in the Bible had destroyed Christs Church (contrary to Jesus own promise in Matthew 16:18).
The Mormon church asserts that the Church Christ founded became increasingly corrupted by pagan ideas introduced by nefarious members. (Sound familiar?) Over a period of years, the Church lost all relationship with the Church Christ established. Consequently, the keys of authority of the holy priesthood were withdrawn from the earth, and no man any longer had authorization to act in Gods name.
From that time onward there were no valid baptisms, no laying on of hands for the receipt of the Holy Ghost, no blessings of any kind, and no administration of sacred ordinances. Confusions and heretical doctrines increased and led to the plethora of Christian sects seen today.
Mormons claim that to restore the true Church and true gospel to the earth, in 1820 God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith in a grove of trees near his home. They told him that all professing Christians on the face of the earth were abominable and corrupt and that the true Church, having died out completely shortly after it began, was to be restored by Smith.
Mormons run into no small difficulty in reconciling the great apostasy theory with Christs promise in Matthew 16:18: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it."
How could it be that Christ, who should have known better, would promise that his Church wouldnt be overcome if he knew full well a great apostasy would make short shrift of it in a matter of decades? Was Christ lying? Obviously not. Was he mistaken? No. Did he miscalculate things? No, again. Christs divinity precluded such things.
What are we left with then? Could it be that Mormons are mistaken in their interpretation of such a crucial passage? This is the only tenable conclusion. If there were no great apostasy, then there could have been no need for a restoration of religious authority on the earth. There would be no "restored gospel," and the entire premise of the Mormon church would be undercut.
The fact is that the only church with an unbroken historical line to apostolic days is the Catholic Church. Even many Protestants acknowledge this, though they argue that there was a need for the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.
As non-Catholic historians admit, it can be demonstrated easily that early Church writers, such as Ignatius of Antioch, Eusebius, Clement of Rome, and Polycarp, had no conception of Mormon doctrine, and they knew nothing of a "great apostasy."
Nowhere in their writings can one find references to Christians embracing any of the peculiarly Mormon doctrines, such as polytheism, polygamy, celestial marriage, and temple ceremonies. If the Church of the apostolic age was the prototype of todays Mormon church, it must have had all these beliefs and practices. But why is there no evidence of them in the early centuries, before the alleged apostasy began?
Church History Is Catholic
The fact is that there is no historical or archaeological indication of any kind that the early Church was other than the Catholic Church. When dealing with Mormon missionaries, remember that all the evidence is in favor of the claims of the Catholic Church. If you want to watch their sails go slack quickly, ask the missionaries to produce any historical proof to support their claim that in the early centuries the Church was Mormon. They cant do it because there is no such evidence.
The Book of Mormon itself suffers the same fate when it comes to its own historical support. In a word, it hasnt got any.
The Book of Mormon describes a vast pre-Columbian culture that supposedly existed for centuries in North and South America. It goes into amazingly specific detail describing the civilizations erected by the "Nephites" and "Lamanites," who were Jews that fled Palestine in three installments, built massive cities in the New World, farmed the land, produced works of art, and fought large-scale wars which culminated in the utter destruction of the Nephites in A.D. 421. The Latter-Day Saints revere the Book of Mormon as the divinely-inspired record of those people and of Christs appearance to them shortly after his crucifixion in Jerusalem.
The awkward part for the Mormon church is the total lack of historical and archaeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon. For example, after the cataclysmic last battle fought between the Nephites and Lamanites, there was no one left to clean up the mess. Hundreds of thousands of men and beasts allegedly perished in that battle, and the ground was strewn with weapons and armor.
Keep in mind that A.D. 421 is just yesterday in archaeological terms. It should be easy to locate and retrieve copious evidence of such a battle, and there hasnt been enough time for the weapons and armor to turn to dust. The Bible tells of similar battles that have been documented by archaeology, battles which took place long before A.D. 421.
The embarrassing truthembarrassing for Mormons, that isis that no scientist, Mormon or otherwise, has been able to find anything to substantiate that such a great battle took place.
"Lifting" from the King James Bible
There are other problems with the Book of Mormon. For example, critics of Mormonism have shown convincing proof that the Book of Mormon is a synthesis of earlier works (written by other men), of the vivid imaginings of Joseph Smith, and of simple plagiarisms of the King James Bible.
The only Bible that Joseph Smith relied on was the King James Version. This translation was based on a good but imperfect set of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible.
Scholars now know the Textus Receptus contains errors, which means the King James Version contains errors. The problem for Mormons is that these exact same errors show up in the Book of Mormon.
It seems reasonable to assume that since Smith was a prophet of God and was translating the Book of Mormon under divine inspiration, he would have known about the errors found in the King James Version and would have corrected them for when passages from the King James Version appeared in the Book of Mormon. But the errors went in.
The "Fullness" of the Gospel?
According to a standard Mormon theological work, Doctrines of Salvation, one finds this definition: "By fullness of the gospel is meant all the ordinances and principles that pertain to the exaltation of the celestial kingdom" (vol. 1, p. 160). Thats an official Mormon statement on the subject. But theres a problem.
If the Book of Mormon contains all the ordinances and principles that pertain to the gospel, why dont Mormonisms esoteric doctrines show up in it? The doctrine that God is nothing more than an "exalted man with a body of flesh and bones" appears nowhere in the Book of Mormon. Nor does the doctrine of Jesus Christ being the "spirit brother" of Lucifer. Nor do the doctrines that men can become gods and that God the Father has a god above him, who has a god above him, ad infinitum.
The Book of Mormon is Anti-Mormon
These heterodox teachings, and many others like them, appear nowhere in the Book of Mormon. In fact, pivotal Mormon doctrines are flatly refuted by the Book of Mormon.
For instance, the most pointed refutation of the Mormon doctrine that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are actually three separate gods is found in Alma 11:28-31: "Now Zeezrom said: Is there more than one God? and [Amulek] answered, No. And Zeezrom said unto him again, How knowest thou these things? And he said: An angel hath made them known unto me."
The Bottom Line
The Book of Mormon fails on three main counts. First, it utterly lacks historical or archaeological support, and there is an overwhelming body of empirical evidence that refutes it. Second, the Book of Mormon contains none of the key Mormon doctrines. This is important to note because the Latter-Day Saints make such a ballyhoo about it containing the "fullness of the everlasting gospel." (It would be more accurate to say it contains almost none of their "everlasting gospel" at all.) Third, the Book of Mormon abounds in textual errors, factual errors, and outright plagiarisms from other works.
If youre asked by Mormon missionaries to point out examples of such errors, here are two you can use.
We read that Jesus "shall be born of Mary at Jerusalem, which is in the land of our forefathers" (Alma 7:10). But Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not Jerusalem (Matt. 2:1).
If you mention this to a Mormon missionary, he might say Jerusalem and Bethlehem are only a few miles apart and that Alma could have been referring to the general area around Jerusalem. But Bethany is even closer to Jerusalem than is Bethlehem, yet the Gospels make frequent reference to Bethany as a separate town.
Another problem: Scientists have demonstrated that honey bees were first brought to the New World by Spanish explorers in the fifteenth century, but the Book of Mormon, in Ether 2:3, claims they were introduced around 2000 B.C.
The problem was that Joseph Smith wasnt a naturalist; he didnt know anything about bees and where and when they might be found. He saw bees in America and threw them in the Book of Mormon as a little local color. He didnt realize hed get stung by them.
Tell the Mormon missionaries: "Look, it is foolish to pray about things you know are not Gods will. It would be wrong of me to pray about whether adultery is right, when the Bible clearly says it is not. Similarly, it would be wrong of me to pray about the Book of Mormon when one can so easily demonstrate that it is not the word of God."
How could it be that Christ, who should have known better, would promise that his Church wouldnt be overcome if he knew full well a great apostasy would make short shrift of it in a matter of decades? Was Christ lying? Obviously not. Was he mistaken? No. Did he miscalculate things? No, again. Christs divinity precluded such things.
What are we left with then? Could it be that Mormons are mistaken in their interpretation of such a crucial passage? This is the only tenable conclusion. If there were no great apostasy, then there could have been no need for a restoration of religious authority on the earth. There would be no "restored gospel," and the entire premise of the Mormon church would be undercut.
STOP! Give me time to get the popcorn!
Joseph Smith had rocks in his head. Mormons try to build upon that.
ping
Spending all that time and effort to put down your fellow Americans while muslims are killing you shows how stupid and hateful you are.
You really have to totally reject critical thinking to accept this whole “well he looked in a hat and saw some stuff” crap.
Its dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.
If you peruse the Free Republic religion forums you will notice a pattern. There's an anti-Mormon group of people here that spends a great deal of their time attacking the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They post regurgitated propaganda on an almost daily basis.
They have a misguided obsession. You can witness many different tactics employed that you might find quite interesting. The straw man argument is a big favorite and is frequently preceded by cherry-picking quotes or other material. After the "quotation" the attacker will misrepresent what has been said or what was meant and then attack their own interpretation.Later they will have the audacity to claim they were "only" quoting our own material.
They will of course insist ad nauseum that they are merely using our sources and are therefore innocent of any deceptive practice. LDS persons have no issue whatsoever having our scriptures or leaders quoted as long as it is presented fairly and accurately. This is rarely (if ever) done.
Another favorite is posting scripture or statements which on their own really present no dilemma. They make something out of nothing while never bringing up a single objection that hasn't been addressed a hundred times before.
You might note a couple of other tactics used to try to antagonize is the use of disrespectful or insulting terms or language and/or pictures. That's a Christlike thing to do right? Yeah I don't think so either. It does speak volumes about them though.
Some of them claim being some sort of special witness to you as being supposedly former Mormons. So someone who is an ex-member of any organization would never have an axe to grind or have reason to try to justify their actions by any means? Perhaps not but perhaps so. The LDS Church gains members from other denominations as well as others faiths all the time. This doesn't make them an expert on anything and you certainly won't hear them attacking their former Church.
Frequently they cruise the headlines of the day seeking any story that might be twisted into making the Church look bad. Anything will do, just watch the progression of posts following it and see what I mean.
After reading their posts, I invite you to seek the truth about whatever "issue" they seem to be "revealing" or "exposing". I promise that if you do so with honest intent, the "ahah" moments you will have will be many and frequent. You will start to recognize the tactics employed to cleverly twist and attack and will likely chuckle the more you see. In actuality, there's nothing new here. It's all been addressed many times before.
The latest twist in the anti-Mormon propaganda machine is to actually go to the links provided, but then they cherry pick what they want, quote and straw man attack that. Almost without fail you will see examples of this following this post.
Clever. It almost appears that they are helping you out by doing some footwork for you. Not so much. Don't be insulted, look for yourself. It's not the haystack they want you to think. So again, seek the truth. They aren't providing it. Use your God-given brain and discernment.
Here's a few links to get your started from a different viewpoint. I have found that the vast majority of the "issues" brought up can be found and addressed at http://www.fairlds.org/ but here's more:
http://scriptures.lds.org/
http://www.lds.org
http://www.fairlds.org/
http://www.mormonapologetics.org/
http://www.mormonwiki.com/Main_Page
http://www.lightplanet.com/response/index.html
http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDS_Intro.shtml
http://www.answeringantimormons.com/index.htm
http://promormon.blogspot.com/
Now you will likely notice the "you never address or answer our points" posts pop up as usual. All after providing the answers just as you have here.
Sometimes it is claimed that these sites present a needle in a haystack. Far from it. But if you give up before you try you won't know will you? They often state that these sites provide no answer. They just don't want you looking. It is as simple as that.
Will you wear blinders too? Seek truth. Find out for yourself. Want to chat with someone on any topic? A few of these sites provide just that. So do your homework sincere seeker of truth. Listen and read from both "sides". Make up your own mind.
I witness to you of these truths and wish you the best, in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
IAPDS
Who cares? As long as the Mormons no longer have the avenging angels to send out killing people, who gives a rat’s tail what they say or do? Obviously you have a problem with them but as far as I am concerned, this is just vicious BS aimed at one particular religion. Want to criticize a religion? Then pick on Islam, they murder people, including their wives and daughters almost every day. Mormons don’t. When I see a Mormon suicide bomber then I might start getting upset about them but until then why don’t you keep this sh** off of FR? I wouldn’t be upset if Jim Rob made a rule where all such posts would be banned.
When Mormons started to claim that Joseph Smith was another apostle of Christ, Jim Rob wasn't too happy about it.
Ill put it this way. I dont believe a single word written by Joseph Smith or his followers when it departs from the Word of God as recorded in the Holy Bible and Im not thrilled about people coming here to preach some false gospel from the pages of Free Republic.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2650662/posts
Hey PD. Try reading the post and answering the points.
You seem to be focused only on this temporary life and politics, yet here you are on the Religion forum where people discuss serious issues like eternal destination.
Believe it or not, some of us don’t care for mormons spewing their false religion and trying to lead others down a path of eternal destruction. Keep on worring about politics if that is all the interests you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ4O1lRLWxU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IONy8MBHWpg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOiFL6YIVUI
once again you have added nothing to the discussion. Your deflections of legitimate questions with copy and paste garbage is tiresome.
No what is tiresome is the same regurgitated propaganda, day after day, year after year.
All addressed at the links provided.
you obviously can’t defend any serious objections that are raised and can’t even point to where in the linked articles the supposed answers are when honest questioners have asked.
The game is up - your gig has been exposed.
Hey PD. Try reading the post and answering the points.
There are no valid points. It’s the same old tired and worn out propaganda regurgitated day after day and year after year.
However, if you are truly interested in the truth, all of it is addressed at the links provided. In a sense, I have done as you asked. I just haven’t done the minor work for you. Do you really want to know the truth? Prove it.
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