Letter to a CES Director

[_moksha]

Brilliant! there is a link to this website?

http://www.mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=33702&p=815800&hilit=quasimodo#p815800

[_Tator]

Tatumn, thanx for your simple and accurate accounting of the issue. It really isn't complicated.

[_Jaybear]

The letter is marketed as merely a list of honest questions. No agenda, just a humble member asking some honest questions.

As I suspected, you didn't really read the letter.

The subtitle of the Letter is: How I lost my testimony.
In the intro he openly states: I’m just going to be straightforward and blunt in sharing my concerns. Obviously I’m a disaffected
member who lost his testimony so it’s no secret which side I’m on at the moment.

This "humble" member reached his conclusions "as a result of over a year of intense research and an absolute
rabid obsession with Joseph Smith and Church history."

For example, take the priesthood ban. I pick this subject because it's one I am also quite critical of. He accuses the church of being intentionally deceitful about this history and lying. I see no evidence of this. He's not humbly asking a question but putting words in people's mouths. It's not a lie for current leaders to say "Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice."

So your best example has been thoroughly demolished by Tatumn. What a shame.

He does the same with every other subject as well. Take Anachronisms. Sorenson wrote a 826 page book which details very good arguments against Runnel's tired old list of anachronisms.

Now you resort to Dan Peterson apologetic rhetoric. "The answers to the questions are found in this apologetic book. I am not going to tell you what they are, or defend them, just because you are to lazy to read the book."

Very disappointing.

He deals with this in a very flippant manner, which is to say sarcastically and not at all. His letter is dishonest. It's not a letter at all, but pure anti-Mormon propaganda.

Joseph Smith is not only a fraud, but he is an obvious fraud. The fact the he put so much effort into crafting the letter tells me that he took the subject far more seriously that the subject matter warranted.

You seriously think you can mount an intellectual defense to: Angels, visitation by God, gold plates, Jesus in ancient America, submarines, seer stones, spreading righteous seed with 16 year old girls, written by the hand of Abraham, Zelph, Adam's alter, latter day prophecies, pay us 10% of your income and when you die your body will be resurrected and you and your wives can have procreative sex for all the eternities and govern your own worlds.

The letter may be "anti-mormonISM" propaganda, but that is only because reality is anti-mormonism. Its certainly not dishonest.

The value of Mormonism is not that it teaches eternal "truths," but that it provides community, peace, hope and comfort to its members ... at a price. For those who are want eternal truth, and place a high value on their intellectual integrity, the price might just be too high to pay.

[_Equality]

Impressive takedown

GIFSoup

[_Jason Bourne]

It is is a very well written and well crafted document.

['Crafted' is the operative word here. You guys are so invested in your apostasy that there's too much pride for you to admit you allowed yourselves to be swayed by erroneous information, or even outright lying and deception. This was seen recently in a series of threads on the plural marriages/sealings of Joseph Smith when such was demonstrated.

Some of you hold yourselves up as being so intelligent that there can essentially be no other motive than a desire to sin.

This post is for the lurker not for the poster BC Space. You see, BC posts like this all the time. He refers to some other thread that you have to look to find and declares victory. Yet if you were to review the thread you would see that his claim of victory is hollow, that he provided very little substance in his defenses and such. This is typical. He is quick to accuse others of lying and deception as well as intellectual dishonesty . Well I will leave it to you to decide who lies and who deceives. Just find the thread about Fawn Brodie’s book No Man Knows My History where BC claims to have 100 easy rebuttals of the book but never provided one even after being asked dozens of times. Go read any thread about Joseph Smith and polyandry where all BC says is where are the children yet one of JSs polyandrous wives told her daughter that she was Joseph Smith’s child. You can decide on that thread who is lying and who id deceitful. Then come back here and read this post above by BC. Tell me who has pride, who lies and who is the real sinner here.

[_Bob Loblaw]

Modern scripture explicitly states that the curse of Cain was the denial of priesthood and that the mark of the curse was black skin. Why all this nonsense about it not being scriptural or doctrinal?

Do these people not know their own scriptures?

[_Jason Bourne]

Modern scripture explicitly states that the curse of Cain was the denial of priesthood and that the mark of the curse was black skin. Why all this nonsense about it not being scriptural or doctrinal?

Do these people not know their own scriptures?

+1

[_Tatumn]

BY never specified whether the policy was based on revelation or what was believed to be revelation and received by who, or just his own opinion. Leaders after BY certainly believed it was doctrinal and based on revelation, but there is no historical record to establish the origin...

This again? This is an LDS gospel principle as plain as repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. I'm afraid your argument simply appeals to the clerical. Certainly one wonders at the mystery that is the LDS deity's filing room. There, one can find the gold plates, and just next to them, all of the folders with the origins and storyboards for LDS gospel principles. You know, repentance, genocide, and stuff.

One may not like that it's a principle of the LDS gospel. It's a difficult position from which to argue, and I apologize that the LDS deity and his church have placed you in this situation.

He testifies in the name of Jesus Christ that it is so, based on the same promptings, whispers, voices still and small, and all other rumblings that testified to him that the Book of Mormon was true, Joseph Smith was a prophet, Jesus was the Christ, and that he himself was to succeed Joseph as a prophet, seer, and revelator; all of this while in an official capacity to speak on the matter. Nothing outside the purview of an LDS prophet.

Conjecture.

The argument with a built-in concession. Good luck arguing this one. A prophet. His testimony. His entire presidency. Every. Single. Presidency. And. Quorum of the 12. Until. 1978.

Either the LDS church has leaders who know how to discern a saving principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ, or it doesn't. One may reject the mouthpieces of the LDS deity on this matter, and I wouldn't judge them one iota.

But then, the very credibility of these mouthpieces who are selected for their talent to discern and preach the truth as pertains to the salvation and exaltation of the LDS deity's children is destroyed.

Note that Brigham DOES say that it's been this way since Cain. It's not new.

The modern leaders say it isn't, wasn't, he was wrong, and they don't know where this false doctrine originated from.

This can be rejected immediately. No revelation exists for this breed of apostasy, and if it does, by whom was it received? I'm completely unaware that any official mouthpiece for the LDS deity has made any such declaration in any authoritative capacity and testified as such in the name of Jesus Christ, as Brigham has.

If a statement were to exist, and were a claim to be made that they don't know where it came from, well, that's another false statement. We've established as much.

And yet Joseph Smith didn't implement any such ban and he ordained black men into the priesthood... so this doesn't really add up.

No, we've established that there are minutes for meetings wherein LDS leaders claim Joseph Smith was the author of this teaching. Strong evidence exists that there was a ban in the South, certainly, if not completely. That a couple of exceptions are made by inspiration of the Holy Ghost isn't at all foreign to the LDS gospel.

... either it's rooted in BYs interpretation of scripture or in statements from Joseph Smith, which is it?

Yes. Both are implicated with room for even more. Are you familiar with any principle of the LDS gospel that isn't supported by the LDS scriptures or a statement from Joseph Smith?

It remains without contention:

It is still a lie for LDS leaders to feign lack of historical data as pertains to this principle. Brigham and many other authorities have spelled it out with letters cut out from magazine articles. One may choose to reject the creepiness of such an LDS principle, but I'm told it's a bad thing to reject the LDS prophets.

Some of this history I'm not really familiar with.

Which is precisely the weakness in your argument and how it fails as pertains to what is available for modern LDS leaders to falsely claim doesn't exist in the historical record.

[_Tatumn]

Modern scripture explicitly states that the curse of Cain was the denial of priesthood and that the mark of the curse was black skin. Why all this nonsense about it not being scriptural or doctrinal?

Do these people not know their own scriptures?

By his own admission there are aspects of the argument he's not been exposed to. Water Dog is, however, completely capable of doing the necessary reading.

Indeed, a beautiful man-butterfly of apostasy may emerge from these discussions.

[_Tobin]

Modern scripture explicitly states that the curse of Cain was the denial of priesthood and that the mark of the curse was black skin. Why all this nonsense about it not being scriptural or doctrinal?

Do these people not know their own scriptures?

By his own admission there are aspects of the argument he's not been exposed to. Water Dog is, however, completely capable of doing the necessary reading.

Indeed, a beautiful man-butterfly of apostasy may emerge from these discussions.

And as I've pointed out, this letter is good at pointing out and demolishing misconceptions about Mormonism (and the LDS Church). One of these misconceptions is that the LDS Church is God's one and only true Church lead by his designated mouthpieces. The fact of the matter is it is a man-made organization lead by men - caretakers of the Church if you will. Another misconception is these men are incapable of making mistakes. However, the truth is they have made MANY mistakes and taught some rather awful things in the past. I'd invite all Mormons to reject teachings like this and instead seek the truth from God and do as he asks.