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Richard L. Bushman...wrote in 2005 "Rough Stone Rolling..." "I first became aware of the problems shortly after 'Rough Stone Rolling' came out...I thought I was getting these emails asking for help..." Then Bushman heard that many other scholars were also being beset with queries from members of the LDS Church who had encountered something on the Internet that had shaken their faith. He began to hear the same thing from ordinary Mormons who had friends or family who were having problems. He also heard from people at BYU how it was a problem there as well. People were encountering things...

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is losing a record number of its membership. A new report quotes an LDS general authority who said more members are falling away today than any time in the past 175 years. At meetings like General Conference, Utahns may be used to seeing members of the LDS Church show up in record numbers. But according to a recent Reuters article citing LDS General Authority Marlin K. Jensen, for the church as a whole, the record in going in a different direction. Elder Jensen told the...

SALT LAKE CITY — A Minerva Teichert painting known as "The Law on the Plates of Brass" is at the heart of a legal dispute pitting a downtown art gallery against the painting's one-time owner, and the LDS Church . Thomas Alder, owner of Williams Fine Art Gallery, contends two unnamed representatives from the Church History Museum showed up with paperwork to "borrow" the painting from his business and never returned it. Instead, his lawsuit alleges the painting's owner breached their consignment contract and sold the painting to a member of the museum's acquisition committee without Alder's knowledge. A Dec....

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

The Salon article "Mitt and the White Horse Prophecy A close look at the roots of Romney's -- and the Mormon church's -- political ambitions" by Sally Denton will no doubt be dismissed as a religious smear by those inclined to support Mitt Romney... ...if we as an electorate truly did consider totally off limits all questions about what a candidate believes about God, the role of his faith in society and history and how his particular creed dictates that he behaves -- then I'd be fine with declaring articles like Denton's irrelevant if not beyond the pale. But it's...

After wondering aloud yesterday whether the Romneys converted Mitt's dead father-in-law to Mormonism...Yes. They did. Edward Davies, Ann Romney's father, was an atheist who was also strongly anti-religion. By the time he died, he was the only member of Ann Romney's immediate family to not convert to Mormonism. Fourteen months later, in 1993, he was baptized in a special ceremony at a Salt Lake City church. This practice requires a living person who has already been baptized to undergo the immersion in water again on behalf of the dead. No word on who this person might have been in Davies'...

There is an element of the Mormon faith that hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but if Romney is the nominee, it will....the relatively recent racism of the Church...which practiced exclusion and contempt for African-Americans...and has yet to fully repudiate it. It wasn't until 1978 that the LDS church allowed African-American males into the priesthood -- an essential post that nearly all...males attain. Mormon men don't get to be god of their own planet without it. Yet Romney, as a Mormon missionary...tried to convert others into a faith that practiced overt racism...He was 31 years old before blacks were allowed...

The Holy Synod of the Œcumenical Canonical Orthodox Church Worldwide (ŒCOCW) joins the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in opposing the Obama administration’s decision to force all health care providers irrespective of religious beliefs to provide mandatory abortions. Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, President of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference described the Obama administration’s position on this matter “literally unconscionable,” and the ŒCOCW shares these sentiments. The Catholic-Orthodox position on abortion and the protection of human life is well known and has remained unchanged; making the Obama administration’s publicized position a deliberate and unequivocal affront to Catholic teaching.The ŒCOCW recognizes the Obama...

SNIP ...a unique poll of more than 1,000 American Mormons, released this month by the respected and independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. It’s 125-page report is titled “Certain in their beliefs, uncertain in their place in society.“SNIP Here are just a few facts about Mormons from the Pew Forum’s extensive polling report:- Mormons make up two per cent of the U.S. population. They are concentrated in Utah (34 per cent), the Mountain states and the Pacific Northwest. - Nearly half (46%) of Mormons say that Mormons face a lot of discrimination in the U.S. today. That is...

Newt Gingrich, the winner in the Palmetto State's GOP primary, may have benefited from South Carolinians' uneasiness with Mitt Romney's Mormon faith. Exit polls show that 43 percent of voters who said that the candidates' religious beliefs mattered "a great deal" went for Gingrich. Only 9 percent went for Romney -- a lower percentage than he netted overall, where he is running in second. In contrast, of voters who said the religious beliefs of candidates didn't matter to them at all, Romney won 42 percent. SNIP Huckabee did add, however, that Romney may nevertheless have to address his faith to...

Many GOP voters -- including some well-meaning Freepers -- keep attempting to lecture voters that Mitt Romney's Mormonism "doesn't matter." Well, tell that to three of every five South Carolina primary voters who, according to CNN exit polls, said a candidate's religion mattered either "a great deal" or "somewhat." Click EXIT POLLS: South Carolina for polling data. Only 40 percent of South Carolina GOP voters said that the "Religious Beliefs of Candidates Matter... Not Much/Not at All" Two-fifths of the "Not Much/Not at All" Crowd voted pro-Romney -- compared to... ...less than one-third of them voting for Gingrich... ...less than...

Would you accept an ad from a religious sect touting a divine revelation given to a convicted sex abuser of two girls under 16? That's what the Star Tribune did Friday morning, running two ads from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. One (on page A5 of my Minneapolis edition), simply says, "Jesus Christ, Son Ahman." The second, on A6, proclaimes "Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ Given to President Warren Jeffs," and offers serveral writings for sale. Jeffs, the president of the polygamist sect, was convicted in 2011 of molesting two "child brides" aged 12 and...

In a new biography, two...Boston Globe reporters write about...Mitt Romney... On their hunt for The Real Romney, Scott Helman and Michael Kranish traced Romney's life... SNIP He...became a leader in the Mormon lay clergy...and eventually became the leader of more than a dozen congregations in eastern Massachusetts. SNIP Peggie HayesHelman: "One of the things the Mormon church does not look kindly upon is single parenthood. There was a woman named Peggie Hayes who had known Romney when she was in his ward. She had come from a family which had had some struggles, had looked to Mormonism to anchor them....

An author who grew up in the Mormon Church says she isn't surprised that a recent survey of Latter-day Saints (LDS) shows that they overwhelmingly consider themselves to be Christians. The survey, "Mormons in America: Certain in Their Beliefs, Uncertain of Their Place in Society," was conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. It shows that 97 percent of Mormons consider themselves Christians. But an earlier Pew survey of the general public found that only 51 percent of Americans agree. Tricia Erickson is the author of Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters? The Mormon Church Versus the...

The Yezidis “When you kill someone, you kill yourself” Yezidi FaqirWho Are the Yezidis? The Yezidis or Yazidis are a Kurdish speaking people who live principally in northern Iraq. They number approximately 500,000 – 600,000 with another 200,000 settled in other parts of the world. They are mostly a poor and oppressed people, but they have a rich spiritual tradition that they contend is the world’s oldest. They were the first people to be created in the Garden of Eden, which they claim is the area now known as Lalish in Iraq. From Lalish they dispersed to many countries in...

<p>GREER, S.C. — The second time around, the shock has worn off.</p> <p>The prospect of a Mormon president appears to be less alien to South Carolina Republicans who are giving Mitt Romney a second look after his failed White House bid in 2008.</p>

Rejoice, brothers! File sharing is now an official religion in Sweden. For real. It took two years, but it's done: it's called the Missionary Church of Kopimism and has Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V as its sacred symbols. Founded in 2010 by philosophy student Isak Gerson, the 3,000-member Missionary Church of Kopimism was created to avoid legal persecution. Talking to Torrentfreak, Gerson believes the official seal of approval by the Swedish government will change things: ____________________________ I think that more people will have the courage to step out as Kopimists. Maybe not in the public, but at least to their close ones....

CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH RESPONSE TO A 'DUBIUM'on the validity of baptism conferred by «The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints»,called «Mormons» Question: Wheter the baptism conferred by the community «The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints», called «Mormons» in the vernacular, is valid. Response: Negative.The Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, in the Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect, approved the present Response, decided in the Sessione Ordinaria of this Congregation, and ordered it published. From the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 5 June 2001. + Joseph Cardinal RATZINGER...

America is entering a Mormon moment as a former bishop of the Latter-Day Saints, Mitt Romney, takes front-runner place in the race for the Republican nomination for the presidency. I welcome the religious reckoning that is bound to result. Mormonism shines an ultraviolet light on Christianity in America, revealing features that are unseen under the rest of the spectrum. In the last few years, I have become acquainted with the progressive theological and social movement within the Mormon world. It's much bigger than the public perceives, if it is perceived at all. There is a wide range of thought within...

(To see Cal Grondahl’s cartoon that goes with this post, click here) The LDS Church Library no longer allows access to the Nauvoo City Council and High Council minutes from 1839 to 1845. That’s a shame, but the minutes, when accessible, were recorded. Signature Books, with the assistance of historian John Dinger, has published the minutes, along with notes, and they’re just plain fascinating for enthusiasts of history. Without spin, they lay out the controversy that swirled in Nauvoo prior to Joseph Smith’s murder and the LDS exodus west. The documents lend credence to the belief that the then-secret doctrine...