The gnat-strainer prize.

[_logjamislds]

No, I think "pointing out when G.A.'s don't live up to the Articles of Faith" is worse than gnat-straining: it is accusing the Brethren, which is Lucifer's job and title. (Rev. 12: 10) And, what A of F wouldn't they be living up to? It would take a real stretch of a corrupted imagination to pull that one off, unless it's some version of #13.

[_just me]

No, I think "pointing out when G.A.'s don't live up to the Articles of Faith" is worse than gnat-straining: it is accusing the Brethren, which is Lucifer's job and title. (Rev. 12: 10) And, what A of F wouldn't they be living up to? It would take a real stretch of a corrupted imagination to pull that one off, unless it's some version of #13.

You would be wrong. It is exactly the job of the people of Zion to judge the Brethren.

D&C 64: 38 For it shall come to pass that the inhabitants of Zion shall judge all things pertaining to Zion.
39 And liars and hypocrites shall be proved by them, and they who are not apostles and prophets shall be known.

[_just me]

Leaving the church takes a lot of "inner strength" . . . or, just kicking against the pricks? (Acts 9: 5) The "hundreds" of issues claim that go against the church; many if not most of them have been answered and dealt with for decades if not a century or more. It's just that a lot of people who criticize the church are so bent on their agenda of fault-finding and apostasy that they simply can't accept a perfectly workable answer when it is given. And that, I feel, is the deeper issue: why?

To me this post suggest you have a poor understanding of what the issues are and why they are troubling for many believers.

What is going on in the soul of the willful non-believer that they just can't be settled with reasonable and scriptural explanations of those things with which they find fault?

Because many have not been given reasonable answers.

There's something more going on here, and I hope to leapfrog over the superficial issues and criticisms which I believe have been adequately answered, and find the soul-weaknesses of the non-believers and help them with those issues if they truly can be helped.

You can't help what you don't understand. You are going to need to open your mind and take some time to really listen and try to understand. Then you might be in a position to address peoples concerns. It's not to say that there are not trivial issues like whyme's about how into the hat Joseph face must have been.

+2

[_logjamislds]

It's our job to judge the brethren? Chapter and verse, please. That's the tail wagging the dog.

[_just me]

It's our job to judge the brethren? Chapter and verse, please. That's the tail wagging the dog.

I put it in my post. Read it.

[_Darth J]

It's our job to judge the brethren? Chapter and verse, please. That's the tail wagging the dog.

No, see, that job comes from having integrity and a conscience and intellectual honesty. It does not require an appeal to the authority of Bronze Age Hebrew tribal mythology or Joseph Smith's frontier tall tales based on same.

[_Darth J]

Leaving the church takes a lot of "inner strength" . . . or, just kicking against the pricks? (Acts 9: 5)

No, it's inner strength. "Kicking against the pricks" presupposes that the paid gerontocracy has any authority at all. When you cease to believe in the truth claims of the LDS Church, you cease to recognize its salaried spokesmen as being in charge of you.

The "hundreds" of issues claim that go against the church; many if not most of them have been answered and dealt with for decades if not a century or more. It's just that a lot of people who criticize the church are so bent on their agenda of fault-finding and apostasy that they simply can't accept a perfectly workable answer when it is given.

In your next post, describe your favorite issue and its decades-old answer, please.

And that, I feel, is the deeper issue: why? What is going on in the soul of the willful non-believer that they just can't be settled with reasonable and scriptural explanations of those things with which they find fault?

What's going on is that the Church is not true, and since the Church's scriptures are not true, relying on them for answers is circular reasoning. And the reason why you insist on the existence of "a deeper issue" is that you are not willing to consider that maybe, possibly, the stories you hear in Sunday school are not entirely indicative of objective reality.

There's something more going on here, and I hope to leapfrog over the superficial issues and criticisms which I believe have been adequately answered, and find the soul-weaknesses of the non-believers and help them with those issues if they truly can be helped. Or, maybe, their eternal nature is just that they're "aginners". (Like the guy from Maine who said, "No matter what it is, Ah'm agin it.") If that's the case, well, God has made other kingdoms besides heaven and hell, and we'll all ultimately find our eternal niche where we can be happy, and live out our immortal lives in it. Best wishes.

In summary, you fully subscribe to the Church's monster-under-your-bed stories about ceasing to believe the faith-promoting narrative.

[_Drifting]

No, I think "pointing out when G.A.'s don't live up to the Articles of Faith" is worse than gnat-straining: it is accusing the Brethren, which is Lucifer's job and title. (Rev. 12: 10) And, what A of F wouldn't they be living up to? It would take a real stretch of a corrupted imagination to pull that one off, unless it's some version of #13.

''We believe in being honest...''

Was Hinckley being honest when he touted 'I don't know that we teach that...'?
Was Monson being honest when he stated at conference 'Arthur Patton died quickly.'?
Was Oaks being honest when he explained the Hoffmann letter?
Was Hinckley being honest when he stated that the Word of Wisdom meant no caffeine?
Was Holland being honest when, at conference, he held up Hyrum Smiths actual Book of Mormon?

And what about Joseph himself?

“William Law file[d] a formal complaint with the Hancock County [Illinois] circuit court charging Smith was living 'in an open state of adultery' with Maria Lawrence, Smith's foster daughter and polygamous wife. Maria Lawrence, was a teenaged orphan who was living in the Smith household. In fact, Smith had secretly married both Maria, age 19 and her sister Sarah, age 17 on 11 May 1843 and was serving as executor of their $8,000 estate.

"William Law apparently hoped that disclosing Smith's relationship with the young girls might lead him to abandon polygamy, but Smith immediately excommunicated Law, had himself appointed the girls' legal guardian and rejected the charge in front of a church congregation on 26 May 1844, denying that he had more than one wife.”(Joseph Smith, “History of the Church,” vol. 6, p. 403; and Richard S. Van Wagoner, “Mormon Polygamy: A History,” p. 66)

Seeing the trend of your posts I am beginning to suspect you of being a double agent.
A poster who is deliberately drawing out information to show the Church's flaws whilst, on the face of it, appearing to want to defend the Church.

[_logjamislds]

I was asked to cite my answer to an old chestnut against the church that I felt had been long answered; OK, I'll go as far back as Nov. 1831, D & C Sec. 67. In that, Joseph wrote how people had been "watching" him; finding fault with his revelations, criticizing his language. His revealed reply: (vs. 6-8): "Now, seek ye out of the Book of Commandments, even the least that is among them, and appoint him that is the most wise among you; or, if there be any among you that shall make one like unto it, then ye are justified in saying that ye do not know that they are true; but if ye cannot make one like unto it, ye are under condemnation if ye do not bear record that they are true." It's fine as it stands, but let's make a challenge out of it: let's see you produce the equivalent of a Book of Mormon in 6 months time. You're better educated than Joseph was, you may use a computer with spell check, dictionary, and all the writing bells and whistles. If you think Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon rather than translated it by the gift and power of God, it ought to be easy for you to come up with an equivalent novel. Go ahead; let's see you do it, and I won't even discount the advantages you already have. I'm going to be blunt, here: put up or shut up. 6 months. July 9, 2012. I'm waiting.

[_SteelHead]

Log,
Where is the proof that it only took 6 months to produce the Book of Mormon? Joseph started talking about the plates in 1824 and the book was finally published in 1830. That is 6 years. Can I not make the argument that he had 6 years in which to develop the narrative of the Book of Mormon in order to perpetuate fraud?

6 years to write a novel is hardly miraculous. Can I have 6 years in which to write? July 9, 2018?

Can I demonstrably plagiarize large chunks of the Old Testament and New Testament? Can I also borrow religious, philosophical and other ideas from other writings?