The doctrine about African-Americans wasn't Joseph Smith, but it beared through several of the prophets, including Young. It was actively practiced.
I have already commented on this sufficiently here. On a related note, I spoke with my father who grew up in the church before 1978 (he was 18 at the time). His recollection is that the only thing the church taught about blacks was "Everyone on earth will eventually receive the priesthood. We just don't know when." There is nothing racist about that (quite the opposite).
On plural marriages, it was practiced in scripture but never endorsed by God - simply allowed.
God gave David and Solomon the privilege of having multiple wives. They abused that privilege, and it was taken away.
The LDS only recinded the practice AFTER government pressure, and there are still super-fundamentalist groups that practice it (and one wonders if they still would were it still legal).
Wilford Woodruff makes abundantly clear in Official Declaration 1 that he was prepared to let the church be smashed into oblivion if God didn't interfere. If it were simply a matter of peer pressure, the Church would have caved long before it did.
Looking at the book of Abraham from a non-mormon historical perspective, it's laughable how Smith - a charlatan and treasure hunter with no theological experience (proven historically) could even pretend to know how to translate it.
The "charlatan and treasure hunter" persona that anti-mormons are so fond of portraying is demonstrably not true. Joseph once had a short-term job (that is, he needed a job to feed his family) as a gold digger, a venture that was very unprofitable. And a charlatan? He was constantly working in one effort or another - whether that be traveling to preach, farming, planning and constructing a city (Nauvoo which, by the way, was way ahead of its time in terms of street layout, and formed the basis of the street layout of Salt Lake City), running said city, running a rapidly growing church... You get the picture. He never let other people provide for him while he sat around doing nothing. He never sat around doing nothing. Does that sound like a charlatan? I didn't think so.
NO secular translation comes close to what he proposed.
Perhaps not as a whole (from a modern secular perspective... Egyptology is a vague science at best, unlike mathematics), but how did he even get a single character right?
I quote from this site because it answers your comment better than I can (emphasis mine):
As for the Egyptian facsimiles published with the Book of Abraham (see www.lds.org for Facsimile 1, Facsimile 2, and Facsimile 3), there are fascinating "direct hits" and "near hits" that Joseph makes in his interpretation that simply were not possible for even a scholar to do in the 1830s. However, Joseph's commentary has been heavily condemned by many Egyptologists. In some cases, where Joseph Smith was obviously close to plausible interpretations of symbols based on modern knowledge, his critics amaze me by focusing on some minor point that makes Joseph technically incorrect, in their view, while avoiding the monumental question: "How did a farm boy in the 1830s even get close to interpreting a single symbol properly?" It does not surprise or disappoint me that scholars can find fault with Joseph's commentary, for there are many levels of meaning possible in Egyptian symbolism. We still don't grasp much of what Egyptian thought was all about among the multiple elite priestly groups who kept many of the records, and without that understanding, it is hard to assess the ultimate meaning intended by the author of a passage or diagram. Egyptology is not an exact science like mathema
Some examples: Sonia Johnson, the intellectual purge with included Michael Quinn and other presenters at Sunstone. I could go on, but why? The message has already been sent and received: if you think for yourself, you're already out.
Ok. Quick scan of Wiki articles results in this:
Sonia Johnson was excommunicated for "a variety of misdeeds including hindering the worldwide missionary program, damaging internal Mormon social programs and teaching false doctrine." So, what, a church can't protect its doctrinal integrity by throwing people out who deliberately teach false doctrine?
Michael Quinn was excommunicated for, among other things, his openly homosexual orientation, something that is completely and fully against church doctrines. This by itself is grounds for excommunication. Any church members who persist in their homosexuality are excommunicated. The Church views homosexuality as a grave sin. Note that the details for the excommunication of the other 5 in the so-called "September Six" are unavailable, so there is little or no evidence that it was some sort of "intellectual purge" as you claim. The fact that they all happened to be intellectual people does not mean that was the cause. Remember, correlation does not show causation.
So both of the people you give as examples openly defied church leaders by teaching false doctrines. What would you propose the Church leadership do?
I would like to point out that interviews regarding worthiness include the questions "Do you believe that $CURRENT_PROPHET is called of God to receive revelation to guide the church?", "Do you participate in or affiliate with any anti-LDS groups?", "Do you live the law of chastity? [which would include not giving in to any homosexual urges]", and so on. These are the standards by which church membership is measured. If a person answers incorrectly, the bishop's responsibility is to either assist the member in repenting, or to pass the appropriate information on to the stake president (his superior in the church heirarchy) for appropriate disciplinary action.
In many cases people won't help other people because they already paid their tithing. They'll leave it to others to dole out who gets the cash.
Those people would be wrong in doing so. You should not judge the actions of some members to be the belief or doctrine of the Church.
But I bet if you look at the nitty-gritty details of LDS offerings and its cashflow, you'll see most of going to new "timber and concrete" projects: the forest of new ward meeting houses, maintenence, all kinds of new facilities, add their baseline university (BYU, etc) expenses, with what's left siphoned off to projects like Triad and City Creek Center. In terms of percentage, there won't be a lot left for those less fortunate.
Ah, but here you have simply demonstrated your lack of understanding of how Church finances work. There are several sources of funding from member contributions:
Tithing - used to construct and maintain buildings and temples, as noted above, and to assist in the operation of church-owned schools such as BYU. Some money goes toward the operation of the missionary program, and to fund scholarships for students who qualify.
Fast Offerings - used to fund welfare programs, to purchase supplies for relief efforts during and after natural disasters, and so on. In addition to paying tithing, all members are encouraged to pay fast offerings each month in an unspecified amount. In this way, members can best care for the needy by contributing to the programs the church has set up for such efforts. The Church operates dozens of employment offices which are open to all, member or no.
First of all, thank you for this well-thought-out post. It's refreshing.
The problem is that the aforementioned misunderstanding is held by Mormons. I spent 16 years as one, 1974-1990, and it was specifically taught to me that blacks are marked for their iniquity.
I'm sorry you were taught incorrectly; I know from experience that some members of the Church hold incorrect notions of what the Church believes, and those people are sometimes in teaching positions in the Church. This was not something taught by Joseph Smith. The Church has consistently believed in modern revelation, and Brigham Young sometimes said of what he preached "This is my interpretation of X". While I agree that the statement of a Church leader should generally be accepted as the Church's belief on a particular topic, unless it is the prophet himself stating that X is official Church doctrine, it is not official Church doctrine. What is official church doctrine will always be consistent with what is found in the scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price.
I have found that this page is a good, in-depth explanation of the issue of blacks and the priesthood; I will quote two sections:
One fairly reasonable theory is that in a hierarchical church in the U.S. before the end of slavery, it would be chaos to have slaves be made priesthood leaders over their masters. To deal with the realities of life in a nation that had slavery, excluding the priesthood from slaves could make sense as a realistic non-doctrinal but possibly inspired policy. In the 1840s, a restriction on slaves would be nearly synonymous with a restriction on blacks, and whatever policy Joseph Smith might have taught (without documentation) may have been instituted as a restriction on blacks per se. [...] [It] may be possible that the reason the Lord waited so long to reverse the restriction on blacks (or the reason the Church waited so long to ask the Lord for new guidance on the matter) was because that much time was needed before white society was really prepared to accept blacks as priesthood holders and thus leaders in their Church. This doesn't ease the pain for the black members who felt they were second-class members for all that time. If there is any merit to this theory - and I personally suspect there is - then we whites in the Church have an even greater responsibility than previously imagined to go the extra mile to oppose racism, repudiate past racist attitudes, and truly live up to the teachings of living and past prophets who taught that salvation is offered to all, and are all alike before God.
This is as good an explanation as any I could come up with.
Note that the Book of Abraham was later hilariously falsified.
Because you brought this up, the burden is on you to prove it was "hilariously" falsified. However, because I like jumping the gun, here and here you can find information about secular evidence that the Book of Abraham is, in fact, legitimate (at least in secular terms). Rather than waste space here copying+pasting from those two pages, I will ask you to read them. There is a rather long list of secular evidence (ignored, of course, by popular anti-Mormon literature).
As for White, the conclusions of a random scholar do not interest me. Any non-LDS scholar is going to assign some economic or sociopolitical reason for the change in doctrine, guaranteed, but that does not mean they are correct.
The Sao Paolo temple was dedicated two years prior to this announcement; blacks could enter the Sao Paolo temple to perform baptisms for the dead, so the argument that they needed blacks to fill the temple is incorrect.
I wonder how McConkie knows that he is now blessed with light and kno
I do not believe any general authority has said it is a sin for a woman to work, under any circumstances, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. No one will get into heaven "before" anyone else - the Judgment will be based on your own actions and noone else's. After this life, time will be essentially meaningless anyway.
For real crimes, yes, the Church asks the offender to turn himself/herself in to the law. For non-crime sins, the Church either works with the person to help him or her repent, or the Church kicks the person out of the Church if they refuse. That is well within the Church's rights and is to be expected from any organization - break the rules and refuse to repair the damage, and you're gone. (That's the same way society works - play by the rules or get thrown in jail.) I am unaware of a member being thrown out of church for a nebulous "some reason". The Church takes excommunication very seriously, and in fact when there is to be an excommunication, half of the council is assigned to defend the person to the best of their abilities.
Yes, being excommunicated from the Church can mean loss of friendships, familial relationships, business opportunities, and so on, but the same is often true for being thrown out of Stanford, or the Senate, or the Boy Scouts, or any social group whatsoever. It should be noted that members of the church are not instructed to shun those who have been excommunicated (quite the contrary), and if they do, then they are, in the church's eyes, sinning as well. (We are to forgive all men, and leave it to God whether to forgive or not.)
Forgiveness is not up to the church leader (in fact the church leaders are instructed not to hold the sins of the people in their areas against them), but they are charged with protecting their congregation. If a person repents, the bishop's role is to aid their repentance. If they refuse, the bishop's role is to protect his congregation. Note that generally speaking, an unrepentant person is not barred from church meetings, he/she is only barred from serving in the church and attending the temple.
I suspected there was a reason you were so vocally against the LDS Church, but I didn't think it appropriate to ask. I know I argue somewhat strongly (if we were debating this in person my voice would probably be raised at times), but I do not mean to offend. I try to keep a level head;)
I just wanted to say something about ToS you can't control. Say you go to a car dealer and he says "I'll fix your car for $100. This price is not negotiable." (Assume that $100 is a decent price for the repairs.) You cannot control the terms of the service - he fixes your car on the condition that you pay $100. I view God's commandments the same way - "Do X and I'll bless you with Y." If Y is good enough, then there is no reason not to accept the terms of that agreement; if Y is worth more than X, I actually gain by it.
I'm sorry if I take things too literally; I guess my "how literal is it?" gauge is mostly voice-based. But in any case, no, I hadn't ever heard that expression before, so at least I have that excuse;) Anyway, I'm not sure what you mean by "fall back to rely on the literal dogma the church provides", and how I lose credibility by doing so (I guess I just don't understand what "literal dogma" you're referring to), but I have to say that you yourself have repeated things that appear to be copy+pasted from anti-mormon literature, and by doing so you lose credibility in my eyes (it makes me think you don't think for yourself). I apologize if everything you have posted has been your own content.
Yes, I know that Utahns, and LDS people in general, have a high birth rate. It's a direct result of the belief that we should have children while on earth. But, as I said before, the Church does not even implicitly specify how many children a couple should have. We just like them:)
That is right, AFAIK. No position as of yet. Whenever you let others think for you, receive revelations for you, or otherwise attempt to control you, you fall into a dangerous trap. When do you start thinking for yourself again?
I think it's funny how you assume I have just blindly accepted what my church teaches. You do not realize that I have put great thought into what I believe, and I spent several years doing my own thing. I do not let anyone control me, but from experience I have found that following the Church's teachings makes life much easier.
In Hilldale, Utah the fundamentalist-mormon prophet
Warren Jeffs is not and never was a member of the LDS Church. His rule is almost a dictatorship. You cannot compare his rule to that of the LDS Church leaders; they bear no similarity other than the name "prophet". The LDS Church does not confiscate any members' property. Anything it teaches regarding what should or should not be done is followed voluntarily, or not, with no consequence other than, in some severe cases, disfellowship or excommunication.
I am just wondering, is there some point where you'd grab the reins and take control for yourself?
As I have already alluded to, I have done so, and subsequently I have decided against it. I do not let others think for me - I make my decisions after weighing things on my own.
The LDS church has lately attempted to avoid its racist past by giving blacks the priesthood.
The LDS Church was never racist - keeping the priesthood to a select group was the practice at the time of the Jews as well. Would you argue that the sons of Levi were racist against, say, the sons of Ephraim or Dan or whoever? The priesthood at the beginning of the modern church was restricted to those God chose to do his work - and then later God extended the blessings of the priesthood to all worthy males. Do not make the mistake of thinking that only blacks were denied the priesthood before then - virtually all converts in non-European countries were denied the priesthood as well for the same reason that the priesthood in the time of Moses was denied to those who were not descendants of Levi.
But it long held anti-feminist views remain.
The Church's view that a woman's role is to be a nurturing mother is not anti-feminist. Instead, the Church recognizes that one of the first two commandments given to Man on earth was "multiply, and replenish the earth", as God commanded Adam and Eve. It must have been important if it was first, no? In any case, the Church has made abundantly clear that there are exceptions to the rule - that is to say, some women may never get married, and such women are free to do as they please. Some families do not have enough income from the father alone, and the mother must work to assist in supporting the family. In such situations, the Church encourages mothers to make sure they put their children before their work, so that the children are not neglected.
My wife currently works, and I have encouraged her to do so, but she wants nothing more than to stay home and raise kids. She speaks of little else these days. She, too, has spent time away from church activity; she believes as she does now because she has put thought into the matter. She does not consider the church's view anti-feminist.
They are reverting back to the "Just keep 'em barefoot and pregnant" school of thought.
"Just keep 'em barefoot and pregnant" does not even remotely reflect the Church's beliefs, other than the fact that we believe having children is one of our main purposes for coming to earth. The number of children a couple has is not even hinted at by the Church, it is left up to the parents. As for "keep 'em barefoot", that is perhaps the most ridiculous accusation I have ever heard against the Church. If a man's bishop found out he were keeping his wife barefoot, I'd bet he would get a stern
Of course, the descendants of a particular group of people act exactly as the original group of people acted. We all know that. (/sarcasm) Seriously though, I don't get how who a person's ancestors were has any bearing on this discussion. It wouldn't even matter if you came up with some LDS guy who happens to be a murderer. The fact is, anyone who does something the Church teaches against is doing so of their own volition, and such activity does not reflect on the teachings of the Church.
On money, would you prefer it if the Church combined all its finances into one unmanageable glob? I sure wouldn't.
As for monitoring... I don't even know where you came up with that idea. Exactly what monitoring are you accusing the LDS Church of performing? And why are you even bothering to link to the wiki article on role playing games? I play D&D regularly, and I'm a fan of games such as Diablo II. The LDS Church has taken no position, officially or unofficially, on games such as these. Things like this are left up to the personal discretion of the members of the church, as they should be.
My nick is based on the fantasy series The Wheel of Time by the late Robert Jordan. Nothing the LDS Church teaches implies that I should not read fantasy books.
To pray, Issac went to the fields, Christ went to a mountains, Matthew went to the closet, Peter went to the rooftops, etc. The very idea of people congregating to pray would have been decried by Jesus' disciples. Indeed, they did not pray even amongst themselves, while they were together, instead keeping their prayers to themselves, not unlike eastern meditation. The purpose of being together was for discussion on the things discovered during prayer.
So you're saying we should not start out church meetings with a prayer? We are encouraged to pray privately and as families. It was not so odd as you claim to be seen in prayer at the time of Christ:
During the Sermon on the Mount he gave an example prayer
In James we are told that if we are sick we should call for the elders of the church to pray over us, i.e. as a group
When Christ went up into the Mount of Transfiguration to pray, he brought along Peter, James, and John, so he must not have minded praying with the two of them there
When Christ prayed at Gethsemane he was at least close enough for the Twelve to hear him and record his words
We read of a multitude of Jews praying outside the temple in Luke
Christ prayed at his baptism in full view of the public, who saw the dove descend and heard God's voice from heaven.
When choosing the replacement for Judas Iscariot, the Eleven prayed together to determine which of the two they had chosen should be named an apostle.
On a slightly related note, what gives you the idea the LDS Church congregates in order to pray? Prayer is not the purpose of our meetings, instead we gather to learn from the scriptures. Prayer is almost incidental to that activity. We are taught that we must pray always, in all places.
Also, the idea of giving a standardized percent of your income, especially to religious leaders, would have made Christ's stomach turn... He followed the Pharisees laws, and encouraged his followers to do the same, but he would have much preferred that you helped the poor with your money... Instead, leadership of churches since his time have taken accounts of Jesus's giving of tithing, and twisted his words, into supporting a tithe.
The standardized percent used for tithing in modern times is based solely on modern revelation (see D&C 119:3-5), however the concept of tithing has been around since the times of Adam (Cain and Abel offered up a portion of the fruits of their labors to the Lord), and Malachi warned the Jews that they had robbed God by not paying their tithes. The money is not given to religious leaders, as you claim; none of the leaders of the LDS Church are compensated for their service (other than a few who volunteer full-time, and are given a small stipend with which they can pay their bills). Tithing money goes exclusively toward the maintenance and construction of church buildings. I do not think Christ would be appalled by it as you claim.
The word "tithing" itself means "one-tenth" (see here), so it is not at all surprising that 10% should be the percentage assigned.
I think you, and your fellow LDS churchgoers know less of Christ's
Yes, I have been to South Temple and Main Street recently. The church owns the land the City Creek Center is being built on (it is replacing another mall). The real-estate corporation owned by the Church is cooperating with another corporation to build a new mall on that land. Read the "History" section of the Wiki article I linked to, it explains the situation better than I can. The point of the project is to revitalize the downtown area, since it has been slowly dying due to competition from suburban malls (Fashion Place Mall in Midvale, South Towne Mall in Sandy/Draper/South Jordan, etc). The project is not funded by the Church (Property Reserve, Inc. is a separate entity and has its own funds, it is simply owned by the Church), and it is not being done "in the holy name of retail", and, as I recall, building large buildings usually requires digging a hole for the foundation.
As for "the rest of their money goes into building their empire", the church spends quite a bit on money on humanitarian aid projects, quite aside from their Welfare Center in Salt Lake City. Any time there is a major natural disaster in the world, the LDS Church is one of the first groups to send significant amounts of aid (food, clothing, etc).
The activities of corporations owned by the church is irrelevant to what the church spends *its* money on. Money earned by a corporation owned by the church is not used to build temples and church buildings, as far as I know, instead it is invested in projects such as the City Creek Center. Church buildings are built using tithing funds.
All of this is only incidental to the purpose of the Church. The LDS church has a large missionary effort underway, amounting to more than 50,000 (iirc) volunteers who go out into various parts of the world to preach the gospel. That is the primary purpose of the church.
Joseph was the Mayor when he ordered the people running the printing press to cease their libel (as we know, freedom of speech does not extend to libel). They refused, and Joseph ordered the press destroyed as a nuisance to society. If I recall correctly, he paid for the press.
Where were people like you when mobs were destroying the presses printing our scriptures? Is it fair that others could destroy our presses (printing scriptures) but we couldn't destroy presses which produced nothing but libel? Which side of *that* printing press destruction are you on?
Joseph, acting as Mayor, did as he thought best. It is important to make a distinction between the times Joseph acted as Prophet and the times he acted on his own. In any case, simply being a prophet does not suddenly make a person perfect - Noah, Abraham, Moses, Peter, Paul... none of these men were perfect. Yes, he would have been better off suing for libel or something along those lines. But he made a decision. He did not take the law into his own hands - he was the Mayor, it was in his power to do what he did.
Your sarcastic comments about being the world's oldest man notwithstanding, I have read quite a bit about Joseph Smith, from both sides of the Mormon/Anti-Mormon debate, and by virtually all accounts, Mormon and non-Mormon, he was friendly, courteous, and optimistic. He frequently gave away his own possessions to those who followed him but needed them more. He constantly sought protection from mobs by going to the governor of whatever state he happened to be in, and was repeatedly turned down. (Does that sound like someone mad with power who takes the law into his own hands?) At one point he visited the President of the U.S., and asked that the President do something about the persecution (we would go into some uninhabited area to live, and a few years later we'd get chased away. Is that fair?). The President refused to get involved.
After being turned down by governors and a President, on various occasions, it is understandable that he might feel obligated to take care of what was, in his view, a pu
So, if I understand your argument correctly, you claim that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy first because he was corrupted by power (something that you yourself would not believe if you actually knew anything about his personality), and second because Mark Twain thought Mormon women were ugly?
As for Joseph Smith's own son, he was a confused (literally) young man at the time of his father's assassination. It is no surprise that he would have problems understanding what his father died for.
BTW, a lot of the higher official apparently had no problems with the new mandate (because it sounded fun?) and took to the "practice" like ducks take to water (Joseph Smith, Brigham Young). Actually Joseph Smith was uncomfortable with the doctrine for some time after it was revealed to him (I don't know how reliable that site is. I cannot find the reference I would like to use for this topic). He did not, therefore, take to the practice "like ducks take to water". He at first refused to teach the doctrine at all. In any case, there is no evidence the plural marriages entered in to by Joseph Smith involved any sexual relationship at all - there were no children from any of them (except from his marriage with Emma, his first wife). From all accounts, it appears that all the plural marriages entered into by Joseph Smith himself were simply to create eternal ties. If he taught this doctrine simply to be able to have more sex, then would there not be at least one child from one of these $RANDNUM wives?
in a parallel thread on this topic you claimed no knowledge of "baby killing." It is a reference to Ron and Dan Lafferty's 1984 killing spree in American Fork, Utah. The murder victims had their throats cut, IRC. To quote the article you linked to, "two bearded men claiming to be prophets muscled their way into an American Fork duplex thirsting for blood." They claimed they were prophets - therefore, they were not following established church leadership - assuming they were members at all - and were acting of their own volition.
To claim that Mormons therefore follow baby killers is ridiculous at best. My question was, quite specifically, about the claim that Mormons follow a "Baby Killer".
Because Scientology is obviously a moneymaking scheme masked as a religion, but Mormonism and Wicca are not. We should not ban any religion, but we should (figuratively) fight institutions that take advantage of gullible people with the intent to brainwash them and take their money.
Mormons also have some weird beliefs. I've heard second-hand (yeah, like that's reliable) that in the highest levels of the church you may expect to be able to create your own planet in the after-life, becoming quite like God. We are taught that the purpose of this life is for us to become like God. (i.e. God has a body, so we came to earth to get a body. God is perfect, we came to earth to learn to be perfect, though none of us actually achieve that while alive.) The New Testament (among other scriptures) teaches us that we are heirs of God and joint-heirs of Christ - meaning, of course, that what Christ receives, we can receive as well if we live worthily. Several passages in the Doctrine and Covenants teach that we will become like God, that will may have "an increase" (in the official LDS Spanish translation it uses the word "progeny"; sorry, no link).
That is official doctrine. There is no official planet-creation doctrine; take from what I have said what you will. Also... I think creating a planet does sound rather fun;)
Just so you know, no one is required to pay anything to go to the LDS temple. The requirements are simple: live as Christ taught one should live. Yes, it is generally required that one pay tithing; however, because tithing is 10% of your income, if you make no money, you pay no tithing. It is voluntary. The church does not look into anyone's financial statements or anything to find out whether they are actually paying a full tithe (as does, I believe, the CoS, but I may be wrong). It is a simple "Do you pay a full tithe?" and the answer you give is accepted. (I do not condone lying to get through the interview, I am simply saying that no coercion is used.)
The early temple ceremony did involve an oath on one's own life - the Jews in ancient times had a nearly identical practice. (The Jews believed that if you swear on something, and you are found to have broken that oath, you lose the thing you swore on. Jews swore on their lives for certain things.) The temple oath was, however, symbolic in nature; it was not taught that an angel would actually come and slit one's throat if the oath was broken (nor that church leaders would do it), instead it was meant to remind a person of the importance of the oath being made. It was decided at some point that this particular oath distracted from the purpose of the temple and was therefore removed.
The temple is similar in nature to baptism - baptism is a ceremony that one performs to obtain certain blessings (entry into heaven, assuming one has repented), and the temple ceremony is performed to obtain additional blessings (live with one's family in God's presence forever). No new doctrines are taught in baptism, and no new doctrines are taught in the temple. Doctrines are reinforced in the temple; but those doctrines are available in the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, both of which are publicly available free of charge in their entirety (as I have proven by linking to them). The Journal of Discourses also contains a wealth of teaching (though I do not have a link at hand, I believe it is available online for free).
The LDS Church does own a lot of land and many companies and corporations, most of which are non-profit IIRC. It re-invests money earned in this way; no money goes to church leaders except a few full-time church leaders who do not have enough savings and receive a small stipend with which they can pay bills and such. It is certainly not enough to make those few people wealthy. As a member of the church, I have no quibble with the manner in which the church spends its money. It has three main purposes: build new church buildings in areas where they are needed, maintain existing church buildings, and help people (relief efforts for disaster victims, food for those who have none, and so on). I assume you do not object to the church using its money to help people, nor to the church using its money to build buildings for those areas where church members do not have buildings in which to meet (or where existing buildings are becoming overcrowded).
As I have said to others, please don't regurgitate what you've heard anti-Mormons say.
By "Nice people" you mean people that follow a crazy Baby Killer then yeah, swell people. If you mean people who try to enforce there religion on other people in a corporation, then they are fine and dandy. If you mean people who use legislation to enforce their doctrine on others who don't wish to follow, then yeah that's some great people there. If you mean people who come to my door to waste my time then yep, them some polite people. If you mean people who change their beliefs based on what companies the church owns large stock in, then man couldn't be smarter people. I don't even know where to begin...
Baby killer? You've lost me there.
What corporation tries to enforce our religion on people? We don't believe in forcing others to believe what we believe.
What legislation has the LDS Church used to enforce our doctrine on others? Again, we don't believe in forcing others to believe as we do.
You might consider the missionaries' visit a waste of your time; that's fair. But missionary efforts are not unique to our church; every Christian church for 2000 years has done it (or at least should have, if it follows what the New Testament teaches). But missionaries do not come with the intent to waste your time; that is simply your view of what they have done.
Please provide one example of the LDS church changing its beliefs due to some company it has stock in; I do not know of this happening.
Really, you shouldn't regurgitate everything you hear anti-Mormons say.
Plural marriage and the view of black people as "marked" by the curse of Cain were once core beliefs, and may still be if they weren't aiming for wider acceptance. I have to object... that view of black people was never a core belief of the LDS Church. I challenge you to produce one authentic document that shows Joseph Smith taught that.
That misinformation, as far as I know, comes from a misunderstanding of a passage in the Book of Mormon which describes a curse under which the Lamanites fell. The curse was losing the privilege to have the priesthood among them. The darker skin which they recieved at that point in time was simply a mark so the Nephites would be able to recognize them and avoid mixing with them (similar to the Jews being told not to intermarry with those of other faiths). Later, when the two peoples mixed freely, the curse (lack of priesthood) was removed, but the dark skin was not.
I am unaware of any official doctrinal "reason" that black people (i.e. from Africa) are black. It was, however, not confined to just blacks, but as far as I know, no non-white people was given the priesthood before 1978, and the priesthood was extended to all people at that time (see Official Declaration 2 for more information). It is also useful to note that the priesthood was limited to a select group of people for the entirety of the Old Testament (descendants of Levi and, more particularly, Aaron) and part of the New Testament. More information on this topic can be found here.
It comes to mind that Bruce R. McConkie may have said something to the effect of what you claim we believe in his book "Mormon Doctrine", but that book is widely known to contain many inaccuracies.
As for plural marriage, please see Official Declaration 1 which provides a clear explanation of the reasons the Church renounced that practice. I should note that God is free to command his people, and free to rescind those commands - and this is not a belief unique to Mormons. I simplify, but Christians in general believe God rescinded the Mosaic Law when Christ replaced it with a higher law - effectively taking a law He had given and replacing it with another. To protect His restored church, He commanded that the practice of plural marriage cease, as described by Wilford Woodruff in Official Declaration 1, specifically in the excerpts from his address to the members of the church at the bottom of the page.
The idea of plural marriage is not unique to Mormons either. Many prophets of the Old Testament had multiple wives, and they were blessed by God for it (according to the Bible). Any who say God has never supported plural marriage have not read the Old Testament. The entire House of Israel - that is, the Jewish people - is descended from a man with four wives, Jacob (a.k.a. Israel). That means Jesus Himself is a descendant of a plural marriage. If God did not approve of plural marriage at all, at any time, it seems he would not have promised great blessings to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then fulfilled them through the descendants of their multiple wives.
You are free to dislike other religions, and you are free to argue that their doctrines are invalid or stupid or whatever, but spreading false information about them is equivalent to Microsoft's FUD campaign against Linux.
So you're saying that in a commercial setting, when you are blocked from doing your assigned task by the absence of the two people who could unblock it for you, it is preferable to do nothing instead of doing something?
I should also note that I spent the last two weeks of December cleaning up our source code (the same thing I was doing in this downtime) with my boss' permission, since he said he couldn't think of anything else for me to do. In that light, is it still unacceptable?
Of course, you are right - he who controls the source control, owns the source, so if my boss says I shouldn't do it, I won't, and I haven't since he sent me that e-mail. It's just unfortunate, because every single person in the company, including my boss, agrees that the code desperately needs some cleanup, but cleanup will never make it on to the task list because there are always new features to be implemented.
Even though a little cleanup would make new features a lot easier to implement, it probably won't happen. As long as it works, who cares if it needs cleanup, right?
I honestly can't imagine what it would be like to have a job where if what's immediately in front of me is blocked, then I am blocked from working. Where I work, I was yelled at (by e-mail) for cleaning up our code (yes, I voluntarily started cleaning crap out of our codebase) during some downtime. We are only supposed to work on things on the task list; since both my boss and my coworker with whom I was working on a specific task were gone, I decided to improve our codebase instead of twiddling my thumbs or (gasp!) reading slashdot (ok, I'll be honest, I had already done that).
Apparently that was unacceptable. ("Unacceptable" was the word my boss used.)
Most schools with a decent-sized CS department are part of the MSDN Academic Alliance (MSDNAA) through which their students get most MS products for free (for non-commercial use, of course) including various (read: a dozen?) versions/copies of Windows, Visual Studio, etc.
Everything MS on my computer right now besides Office (which is not available through MSDNAA) I got for free from MSDNAA. Which, I suppose, is really just XP and VS2k8, but who's counting?
Anyway, if your CS department is *not* a member of MSDNAA, go talk to the dean of the department about joining - as far as I know it's fairly inexpensive.
The outcome is the uncontained spread of AIDS across poor nations who put their trust and faith in religions that failed to return it.
Is it wrong to speak up when you see something like this? Would you prefer I didn't say anything to maintain your peace of mind? If the people actually practiced *all* of what the Church tells them to do (specifically to not participate in extramarital sexual relations) then the spread of AIDS would be significantly slowed.
Reminds me of when Dick Cheney was invited by my school administration last year to speak at a graduation ceremony. Something like 100 people protested his appearance, spewing all manner of babble about him (political and personal) and when they didn't get their way they went and held their own graduation ceremony.
So, political figures shouldn't get a free pass either, but neither should people throw a hissy fit over a prominent political figure (especially the vice president!) giving a speech at a primarily university. Ironically this is a private university whose student body is primarily republican and is owned by a church.
Of course they do. They are completely different things. Any statement religion makes about the world is either unscientific or totally abstract so as to avoid collision with science. In the past, this collision stuff didn't matter because religion could just torture the scientists in jail for saying the truth. Now it's all about engineering statements that appeal to the layman while being vague enough to not be held accountable. I pointed out a specific example contradicting you, somewhere, maybe it was in reply to someone else. Evolution. Your statement here would have me believe that my religion either a) tells me evolution is wrong (or perhaps teaches something contradictory), or b) makes statements vague enough to not be held accountable. However, you fail to realize that, in theory, God could have directed evolution to his purposes. This would both provide a reasonable religious explanation for evolution, would not contradict any scientific theories about evolution, and does not require some vague statement about it. (I realize this is the "God did it" explanation. However it provides a way for science and religion, at least in this instance, to coexist.)
I don't care if some goof think He's our father or our mother or some 3-in-1 shampoo mix of fathers and sons and deities, or maybe some distant cousin with a grudge. You completely missed my point. My point was that your comments about God being some guy playing a sick version of the Sims are only valid given a certain conception of the nature of God - so I provided an alternate conception of God. Given my alternate conception of God, it is impossible to believe he is playing some sick version of the Sims.
He wants you to "believe" in him and not all the other millions of versions of him, or he'll put you in hell. And if your'e christian, that version holds that he popped you into existence with "sin" inherited from people youve never seen. You're taking one particular Christian sect's beliefs and projecting them onto every Christian sect. I do not believe in some infinite, eternal "hell", nor do I believe I was popped into existence with sin inherited from anyone. Any sins I have are my own.
As I said to someone (too many posts to this story, I'm not sure what I've said to who), most people's objections to my beliefs are based in ignorance of what I actually believe.
Your willingness to ridicule beliefs you know nothing about shows you only care about winning the argument, not about what is true or not.
I just hope you realize that your understanding of one particular religious group's belief on one particular concept does not mean that all religious groups hold that belief, nor does ridiculing or invalidating that one particular belief invalidate all other religions.
Your assertion that these men (not just the ones I mentioned, but the others that we could provide from any religion) have not thought about their beliefs is entirely baseless. Perhaps your conclusion after thinking about religion was that there is no God, but that does not mean that everyone else must come to the same conclusion, nor that they are wrong. The fact that your assertion is wrong does not mean that your conclusion is wrong, either. Simply stated, you cannot make assertions about what other people have thought about and then use that as a basis for calling them uneducated, especially when they are provably educated in various secular fields.
I will say this again: religion and science do not have to be mutually exclusive. Just because you choose to believe they are does not make it so.
Your view of God as some guy playing the Sims only works if you do not believe God is our father (in a literal descent sort of way). The Old Testament, in giving the lineage of some guy or other, refers to Adam as the son of God. We are referred to as offspring and heirs of God in the New Testament.
God is no more a guy "who likes to play the Sims with us" than a 35-year-old businessman with three kids. God simply has more power at his disposal than the businessman.
God was speaking to their understanding; that is, the people He spoke to believed the sun moved through the sky (that is, revolved around the earth), so God told them He would stop it from moving through the sky because that's what they would understand.
We often explain things to our children in simplified form, when, in fact, that simplified form is incorrect, simply because the child would not understand the full truth, but the simplified form will allow the child to later understand the full truth. Why can God not do the same?
Slashdot Mirror
The doctrine about African-Americans wasn't Joseph Smith, but it beared through several of the prophets, including Young. It was actively practiced.
I have already commented on this sufficiently here. On a related note, I spoke with my father who grew up in the church before 1978 (he was 18 at the time). His recollection is that the only thing the church taught about blacks was "Everyone on earth will eventually receive the priesthood. We just don't know when." There is nothing racist about that (quite the opposite).
On plural marriages, it was practiced in scripture but never endorsed by God - simply allowed.
God gave David and Solomon the privilege of having multiple wives. They abused that privilege, and it was taken away.
The LDS only recinded the practice AFTER government pressure, and there are still super-fundamentalist groups that practice it (and one wonders if they still would were it still legal).
Wilford Woodruff makes abundantly clear in Official Declaration 1 that he was prepared to let the church be smashed into oblivion if God didn't interfere. If it were simply a matter of peer pressure, the Church would have caved long before it did.
Looking at the book of Abraham from a non-mormon historical perspective, it's laughable how Smith - a charlatan and treasure hunter with no theological experience (proven historically) could even pretend to know how to translate it.
The "charlatan and treasure hunter" persona that anti-mormons are so fond of portraying is demonstrably not true. Joseph once had a short-term job (that is, he needed a job to feed his family) as a gold digger, a venture that was very unprofitable. And a charlatan? He was constantly working in one effort or another - whether that be traveling to preach, farming, planning and constructing a city (Nauvoo which, by the way, was way ahead of its time in terms of street layout, and formed the basis of the street layout of Salt Lake City), running said city, running a rapidly growing church... You get the picture. He never let other people provide for him while he sat around doing nothing. He never sat around doing nothing. Does that sound like a charlatan? I didn't think so.
NO secular translation comes close to what he proposed.
Perhaps not as a whole (from a modern secular perspective... Egyptology is a vague science at best, unlike mathematics), but how did he even get a single character right?
I quote from this site because it answers your comment better than I can (emphasis mine):
As for the Egyptian facsimiles published with the Book of Abraham (see www.lds.org for Facsimile 1, Facsimile 2, and Facsimile 3), there are fascinating "direct hits" and "near hits" that Joseph makes in his interpretation that simply were not possible for even a scholar to do in the 1830s. However, Joseph's commentary has been heavily condemned by many Egyptologists. In some cases, where Joseph Smith was obviously close to plausible interpretations of symbols based on modern knowledge, his critics amaze me by focusing on some minor point that makes Joseph technically incorrect, in their view, while avoiding the monumental question: "How did a farm boy in the 1830s even get close to interpreting a single symbol properly?" It does not surprise or disappoint me that scholars can find fault with Joseph's commentary, for there are many levels of meaning possible in Egyptian symbolism. We still don't grasp much of what Egyptian thought was all about among the multiple elite priestly groups who kept many of the records, and without that understanding, it is hard to assess the ultimate meaning intended by the author of a passage or diagram. Egyptology is not an exact science like mathema
Some examples: Sonia Johnson, the intellectual purge with included Michael Quinn and other presenters at Sunstone. I could go on, but why? The message has already been sent and received: if you think for yourself, you're already out.
Ok. Quick scan of Wiki articles results in this:
So both of the people you give as examples openly defied church leaders by teaching false doctrines. What would you propose the Church leadership do?
I would like to point out that interviews regarding worthiness include the questions "Do you believe that $CURRENT_PROPHET is called of God to receive revelation to guide the church?", "Do you participate in or affiliate with any anti-LDS groups?", "Do you live the law of chastity? [which would include not giving in to any homosexual urges]", and so on. These are the standards by which church membership is measured. If a person answers incorrectly, the bishop's responsibility is to either assist the member in repenting, or to pass the appropriate information on to the stake president (his superior in the church heirarchy) for appropriate disciplinary action.
In many cases people won't help other people because they already paid their tithing. They'll leave it to others to dole out who gets the cash.
Those people would be wrong in doing so. You should not judge the actions of some members to be the belief or doctrine of the Church.
But I bet if you look at the nitty-gritty details of LDS offerings and its cashflow, you'll see most of going to new "timber and concrete" projects: the forest of new ward meeting houses, maintenence, all kinds of new facilities, add their baseline university (BYU, etc) expenses, with what's left siphoned off to projects like Triad and City Creek Center. In terms of percentage, there won't be a lot left for those less fortunate.
Ah, but here you have simply demonstrated your lack of understanding of how Church finances work. There are several sources of funding from member contributions:
Nope, sorry. I would love to be allowed to complete the last book of the Wheel of Time, but I'm not even close to good enough at writing ;) I wait anxiously for Brandon to finish it...
The problem is that the aforementioned misunderstanding is held by Mormons. I spent 16 years as one, 1974-1990, and it was specifically taught to me that blacks are marked for their iniquity.
I'm sorry you were taught incorrectly; I know from experience that some members of the Church hold incorrect notions of what the Church believes, and those people are sometimes in teaching positions in the Church. This was not something taught by Joseph Smith. The Church has consistently believed in modern revelation, and Brigham Young sometimes said of what he preached "This is my interpretation of X". While I agree that the statement of a Church leader should generally be accepted as the Church's belief on a particular topic, unless it is the prophet himself stating that X is official Church doctrine, it is not official Church doctrine. What is official church doctrine will always be consistent with what is found in the scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price.
I have found that this page is a good, in-depth explanation of the issue of blacks and the priesthood; I will quote two sections:
One fairly reasonable theory is that in a hierarchical church in the U.S. before the end of slavery, it would be chaos to have slaves be made priesthood leaders over their masters. To deal with the realities of life in a nation that had slavery, excluding the priesthood from slaves could make sense as a realistic non-doctrinal but possibly inspired policy. In the 1840s, a restriction on slaves would be nearly synonymous with a restriction on blacks, and whatever policy Joseph Smith might have taught (without documentation) may have been instituted as a restriction on blacks per se.
[...]
[It] may be possible that the reason the Lord waited so long to reverse the restriction on blacks (or the reason the Church waited so long to ask the Lord for new guidance on the matter) was because that much time was needed before white society was really prepared to accept blacks as priesthood holders and thus leaders in their Church. This doesn't ease the pain for the black members who felt they were second-class members for all that time. If there is any merit to this theory - and I personally suspect there is - then we whites in the Church have an even greater responsibility than previously imagined to go the extra mile to oppose racism, repudiate past racist attitudes, and truly live up to the teachings of living and past prophets who taught that salvation is offered to all, and are all alike before God.
This is as good an explanation as any I could come up with.
Note that the Book of Abraham was later hilariously falsified.
Because you brought this up, the burden is on you to prove it was "hilariously" falsified. However, because I like jumping the gun, here and here you can find information about secular evidence that the Book of Abraham is, in fact, legitimate (at least in secular terms). Rather than waste space here copying+pasting from those two pages, I will ask you to read them. There is a rather long list of secular evidence (ignored, of course, by popular anti-Mormon literature).
As for White, the conclusions of a random scholar do not interest me. Any non-LDS scholar is going to assign some economic or sociopolitical reason for the change in doctrine, guaranteed, but that does not mean they are correct.
The Sao Paolo temple was dedicated two years prior to this announcement; blacks could enter the Sao Paolo temple to perform baptisms for the dead, so the argument that they needed blacks to fill the temple is incorrect.
I wonder how McConkie knows that he is now blessed with light and kno
I do not believe any general authority has said it is a sin for a woman to work, under any circumstances, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. No one will get into heaven "before" anyone else - the Judgment will be based on your own actions and noone else's. After this life, time will be essentially meaningless anyway.
;)
;) Anyway, I'm not sure what you mean by "fall back to rely on the literal dogma the church provides", and how I lose credibility by doing so (I guess I just don't understand what "literal dogma" you're referring to), but I have to say that you yourself have repeated things that appear to be copy+pasted from anti-mormon literature, and by doing so you lose credibility in my eyes (it makes me think you don't think for yourself). I apologize if everything you have posted has been your own content.
:)
For real crimes, yes, the Church asks the offender to turn himself/herself in to the law. For non-crime sins, the Church either works with the person to help him or her repent, or the Church kicks the person out of the Church if they refuse. That is well within the Church's rights and is to be expected from any organization - break the rules and refuse to repair the damage, and you're gone. (That's the same way society works - play by the rules or get thrown in jail.) I am unaware of a member being thrown out of church for a nebulous "some reason". The Church takes excommunication very seriously, and in fact when there is to be an excommunication, half of the council is assigned to defend the person to the best of their abilities.
Yes, being excommunicated from the Church can mean loss of friendships, familial relationships, business opportunities, and so on, but the same is often true for being thrown out of Stanford, or the Senate, or the Boy Scouts, or any social group whatsoever. It should be noted that members of the church are not instructed to shun those who have been excommunicated (quite the contrary), and if they do, then they are, in the church's eyes, sinning as well. (We are to forgive all men, and leave it to God whether to forgive or not.)
Forgiveness is not up to the church leader (in fact the church leaders are instructed not to hold the sins of the people in their areas against them), but they are charged with protecting their congregation. If a person repents, the bishop's role is to aid their repentance. If they refuse, the bishop's role is to protect his congregation. Note that generally speaking, an unrepentant person is not barred from church meetings, he/she is only barred from serving in the church and attending the temple.
I suspected there was a reason you were so vocally against the LDS Church, but I didn't think it appropriate to ask. I know I argue somewhat strongly (if we were debating this in person my voice would probably be raised at times), but I do not mean to offend. I try to keep a level head
I just wanted to say something about ToS you can't control. Say you go to a car dealer and he says "I'll fix your car for $100. This price is not negotiable." (Assume that $100 is a decent price for the repairs.) You cannot control the terms of the service - he fixes your car on the condition that you pay $100. I view God's commandments the same way - "Do X and I'll bless you with Y." If Y is good enough, then there is no reason not to accept the terms of that agreement; if Y is worth more than X, I actually gain by it.
I'm sorry if I take things too literally; I guess my "how literal is it?" gauge is mostly voice-based. But in any case, no, I hadn't ever heard that expression before, so at least I have that excuse
Yes, I know that Utahns, and LDS people in general, have a high birth rate. It's a direct result of the belief that we should have children while on earth. But, as I said before, the Church does not even implicitly specify how many children a couple should have. We just like them
That is right, AFAIK. No position as of yet. Whenever you let others think for you, receive revelations for you, or otherwise attempt to control you, you fall into a dangerous trap. When do you start thinking for yourself again?
I think it's funny how you assume I have just blindly accepted what my church teaches. You do not realize that I have put great thought into what I believe, and I spent several years doing my own thing. I do not let anyone control me, but from experience I have found that following the Church's teachings makes life much easier.
In Hilldale, Utah the fundamentalist-mormon prophet
Warren Jeffs is not and never was a member of the LDS Church. His rule is almost a dictatorship. You cannot compare his rule to that of the LDS Church leaders; they bear no similarity other than the name "prophet". The LDS Church does not confiscate any members' property. Anything it teaches regarding what should or should not be done is followed voluntarily, or not, with no consequence other than, in some severe cases, disfellowship or excommunication.
I am just wondering, is there some point where you'd grab the reins and take control for yourself?
As I have already alluded to, I have done so, and subsequently I have decided against it. I do not let others think for me - I make my decisions after weighing things on my own.
The LDS church has lately attempted to avoid its racist past by giving blacks the priesthood.
The LDS Church was never racist - keeping the priesthood to a select group was the practice at the time of the Jews as well. Would you argue that the sons of Levi were racist against, say, the sons of Ephraim or Dan or whoever? The priesthood at the beginning of the modern church was restricted to those God chose to do his work - and then later God extended the blessings of the priesthood to all worthy males. Do not make the mistake of thinking that only blacks were denied the priesthood before then - virtually all converts in non-European countries were denied the priesthood as well for the same reason that the priesthood in the time of Moses was denied to those who were not descendants of Levi.
But it long held anti-feminist views remain.
The Church's view that a woman's role is to be a nurturing mother is not anti-feminist. Instead, the Church recognizes that one of the first two commandments given to Man on earth was "multiply, and replenish the earth", as God commanded Adam and Eve. It must have been important if it was first, no? In any case, the Church has made abundantly clear that there are exceptions to the rule - that is to say, some women may never get married, and such women are free to do as they please. Some families do not have enough income from the father alone, and the mother must work to assist in supporting the family. In such situations, the Church encourages mothers to make sure they put their children before their work, so that the children are not neglected.
My wife currently works, and I have encouraged her to do so, but she wants nothing more than to stay home and raise kids. She speaks of little else these days. She, too, has spent time away from church activity; she believes as she does now because she has put thought into the matter. She does not consider the church's view anti-feminist.
They are reverting back to the "Just keep 'em barefoot and pregnant" school of thought.
"Just keep 'em barefoot and pregnant" does not even remotely reflect the Church's beliefs, other than the fact that we believe having children is one of our main purposes for coming to earth. The number of children a couple has is not even hinted at by the Church, it is left up to the parents. As for "keep 'em barefoot", that is perhaps the most ridiculous accusation I have ever heard against the Church. If a man's bishop found out he were keeping his wife barefoot, I'd bet he would get a stern
Of course, the descendants of a particular group of people act exactly as the original group of people acted. We all know that. (/sarcasm) Seriously though, I don't get how who a person's ancestors were has any bearing on this discussion. It wouldn't even matter if you came up with some LDS guy who happens to be a murderer. The fact is, anyone who does something the Church teaches against is doing so of their own volition, and such activity does not reflect on the teachings of the Church.
On money, would you prefer it if the Church combined all its finances into one unmanageable glob? I sure wouldn't.
As for monitoring... I don't even know where you came up with that idea. Exactly what monitoring are you accusing the LDS Church of performing? And why are you even bothering to link to the wiki article on role playing games? I play D&D regularly, and I'm a fan of games such as Diablo II. The LDS Church has taken no position, officially or unofficially, on games such as these. Things like this are left up to the personal discretion of the members of the church, as they should be.
My nick is based on the fantasy series The Wheel of Time by the late Robert Jordan. Nothing the LDS Church teaches implies that I should not read fantasy books.
To pray, Issac went to the fields, Christ went to a mountains, Matthew went to the closet, Peter went to the rooftops, etc. The very idea of people congregating to pray would have been decried by Jesus' disciples. Indeed, they did not pray even amongst themselves, while they were together, instead keeping their prayers to themselves, not unlike eastern meditation. The purpose of being together was for discussion on the things discovered during prayer.
So you're saying we should not start out church meetings with a prayer? We are encouraged to pray privately and as families. It was not so odd as you claim to be seen in prayer at the time of Christ:
I trust that is enough examples?
On a slightly related note, what gives you the idea the LDS Church congregates in order to pray? Prayer is not the purpose of our meetings, instead we gather to learn from the scriptures. Prayer is almost incidental to that activity. We are taught that we must pray always, in all places.
Also, the idea of giving a standardized percent of your income, especially to religious leaders, would have made Christ's stomach turn... He followed the Pharisees laws, and encouraged his followers to do the same, but he would have much preferred that you helped the poor with your money... Instead, leadership of churches since his time have taken accounts of Jesus's giving of tithing, and twisted his words, into supporting a tithe.
The standardized percent used for tithing in modern times is based solely on modern revelation (see D&C 119:3-5), however the concept of tithing has been around since the times of Adam (Cain and Abel offered up a portion of the fruits of their labors to the Lord), and Malachi warned the Jews that they had robbed God by not paying their tithes. The money is not given to religious leaders, as you claim; none of the leaders of the LDS Church are compensated for their service (other than a few who volunteer full-time, and are given a small stipend with which they can pay their bills). Tithing money goes exclusively toward the maintenance and construction of church buildings. I do not think Christ would be appalled by it as you claim.
The word "tithing" itself means "one-tenth" (see here), so it is not at all surprising that 10% should be the percentage assigned.
I think you, and your fellow LDS churchgoers know less of Christ's
Yes, I have been to South Temple and Main Street recently. The church owns the land the City Creek Center is being built on (it is replacing another mall). The real-estate corporation owned by the Church is cooperating with another corporation to build a new mall on that land. Read the "History" section of the Wiki article I linked to, it explains the situation better than I can. The point of the project is to revitalize the downtown area, since it has been slowly dying due to competition from suburban malls (Fashion Place Mall in Midvale, South Towne Mall in Sandy/Draper/South Jordan, etc). The project is not funded by the Church (Property Reserve, Inc. is a separate entity and has its own funds, it is simply owned by the Church), and it is not being done "in the holy name of retail", and, as I recall, building large buildings usually requires digging a hole for the foundation.
As for "the rest of their money goes into building their empire", the church spends quite a bit on money on humanitarian aid projects, quite aside from their Welfare Center in Salt Lake City. Any time there is a major natural disaster in the world, the LDS Church is one of the first groups to send significant amounts of aid (food, clothing, etc).
The activities of corporations owned by the church is irrelevant to what the church spends *its* money on. Money earned by a corporation owned by the church is not used to build temples and church buildings, as far as I know, instead it is invested in projects such as the City Creek Center. Church buildings are built using tithing funds.
All of this is only incidental to the purpose of the Church. The LDS church has a large missionary effort underway, amounting to more than 50,000 (iirc) volunteers who go out into various parts of the world to preach the gospel. That is the primary purpose of the church.
Joseph was the Mayor when he ordered the people running the printing press to cease their libel (as we know, freedom of speech does not extend to libel). They refused, and Joseph ordered the press destroyed as a nuisance to society. If I recall correctly, he paid for the press.
Where were people like you when mobs were destroying the presses printing our scriptures? Is it fair that others could destroy our presses (printing scriptures) but we couldn't destroy presses which produced nothing but libel? Which side of *that* printing press destruction are you on?
Joseph, acting as Mayor, did as he thought best. It is important to make a distinction between the times Joseph acted as Prophet and the times he acted on his own. In any case, simply being a prophet does not suddenly make a person perfect - Noah, Abraham, Moses, Peter, Paul... none of these men were perfect. Yes, he would have been better off suing for libel or something along those lines. But he made a decision. He did not take the law into his own hands - he was the Mayor, it was in his power to do what he did.
Your sarcastic comments about being the world's oldest man notwithstanding, I have read quite a bit about Joseph Smith, from both sides of the Mormon/Anti-Mormon debate, and by virtually all accounts, Mormon and non-Mormon, he was friendly, courteous, and optimistic. He frequently gave away his own possessions to those who followed him but needed them more. He constantly sought protection from mobs by going to the governor of whatever state he happened to be in, and was repeatedly turned down. (Does that sound like someone mad with power who takes the law into his own hands?) At one point he visited the President of the U.S., and asked that the President do something about the persecution (we would go into some uninhabited area to live, and a few years later we'd get chased away. Is that fair?). The President refused to get involved.
After being turned down by governors and a President, on various occasions, it is understandable that he might feel obligated to take care of what was, in his view, a pu
So, if I understand your argument correctly, you claim that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy first because he was corrupted by power (something that you yourself would not believe if you actually knew anything about his personality), and second because Mark Twain thought Mormon women were ugly?
As for Joseph Smith's own son, he was a confused (literally) young man at the time of his father's assassination. It is no surprise that he would have problems understanding what his father died for.
Prove that any such documents existed at any point; alternatively, prove that they have "been purged by modern day Mormons".
You can't use the lack of evidence as evidence.
It is a reference to Ron and Dan Lafferty's 1984 killing spree in American Fork, Utah. The murder victims had their throats cut, IRC. To quote the article you linked to, "two bearded men claiming to be prophets muscled their way into an American Fork duplex thirsting for blood." They claimed they were prophets - therefore, they were not following established church leadership - assuming they were members at all - and were acting of their own volition.
To claim that Mormons therefore follow baby killers is ridiculous at best. My question was, quite specifically, about the claim that Mormons follow a "Baby Killer".
Because Scientology is obviously a moneymaking scheme masked as a religion, but Mormonism and Wicca are not. We should not ban any religion, but we should (figuratively) fight institutions that take advantage of gullible people with the intent to brainwash them and take their money.
That is official doctrine. There is no official planet-creation doctrine; take from what I have said what you will. Also... I think creating a planet does sound rather fun
Just so you know, no one is required to pay anything to go to the LDS temple. The requirements are simple: live as Christ taught one should live. Yes, it is generally required that one pay tithing; however, because tithing is 10% of your income, if you make no money, you pay no tithing. It is voluntary. The church does not look into anyone's financial statements or anything to find out whether they are actually paying a full tithe (as does, I believe, the CoS, but I may be wrong). It is a simple "Do you pay a full tithe?" and the answer you give is accepted. (I do not condone lying to get through the interview, I am simply saying that no coercion is used.)
The early temple ceremony did involve an oath on one's own life - the Jews in ancient times had a nearly identical practice. (The Jews believed that if you swear on something, and you are found to have broken that oath, you lose the thing you swore on. Jews swore on their lives for certain things.) The temple oath was, however, symbolic in nature; it was not taught that an angel would actually come and slit one's throat if the oath was broken (nor that church leaders would do it), instead it was meant to remind a person of the importance of the oath being made. It was decided at some point that this particular oath distracted from the purpose of the temple and was therefore removed.
The temple is similar in nature to baptism - baptism is a ceremony that one performs to obtain certain blessings (entry into heaven, assuming one has repented), and the temple ceremony is performed to obtain additional blessings (live with one's family in God's presence forever). No new doctrines are taught in baptism, and no new doctrines are taught in the temple. Doctrines are reinforced in the temple; but those doctrines are available in the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, both of which are publicly available free of charge in their entirety (as I have proven by linking to them). The Journal of Discourses also contains a wealth of teaching (though I do not have a link at hand, I believe it is available online for free).
The LDS Church does own a lot of land and many companies and corporations, most of which are non-profit IIRC. It re-invests money earned in this way; no money goes to church leaders except a few full-time church leaders who do not have enough savings and receive a small stipend with which they can pay bills and such. It is certainly not enough to make those few people wealthy. As a member of the church, I have no quibble with the manner in which the church spends its money. It has three main purposes: build new church buildings in areas where they are needed, maintain existing church buildings, and help people (relief efforts for disaster victims, food for those who have none, and so on). I assume you do not object to the church using its money to help people, nor to the church using its money to build buildings for those areas where church members do not have buildings in which to meet (or where existing buildings are becoming overcrowded).
As I have said to others, please don't regurgitate what you've heard anti-Mormons say.
If you mean people who try to enforce there religion on other people in a corporation, then they are fine and dandy.
If you mean people who use legislation to enforce their doctrine on others who don't wish to follow, then yeah that's some great people there.
If you mean people who come to my door to waste my time then yep, them some polite people.
If you mean people who change their beliefs based on what companies the church owns large stock in, then man couldn't be smarter people. I don't even know where to begin...
Really, you shouldn't regurgitate everything you hear anti-Mormons say.
That misinformation, as far as I know, comes from a misunderstanding of a passage in the Book of Mormon which describes a curse under which the Lamanites fell. The curse was losing the privilege to have the priesthood among them. The darker skin which they recieved at that point in time was simply a mark so the Nephites would be able to recognize them and avoid mixing with them (similar to the Jews being told not to intermarry with those of other faiths). Later, when the two peoples mixed freely, the curse (lack of priesthood) was removed, but the dark skin was not.
I am unaware of any official doctrinal "reason" that black people (i.e. from Africa) are black. It was, however, not confined to just blacks, but as far as I know, no non-white people was given the priesthood before 1978, and the priesthood was extended to all people at that time (see Official Declaration 2 for more information). It is also useful to note that the priesthood was limited to a select group of people for the entirety of the Old Testament (descendants of Levi and, more particularly, Aaron) and part of the New Testament. More information on this topic can be found here.
It comes to mind that Bruce R. McConkie may have said something to the effect of what you claim we believe in his book "Mormon Doctrine", but that book is widely known to contain many inaccuracies.
As for plural marriage, please see Official Declaration 1 which provides a clear explanation of the reasons the Church renounced that practice. I should note that God is free to command his people, and free to rescind those commands - and this is not a belief unique to Mormons. I simplify, but Christians in general believe God rescinded the Mosaic Law when Christ replaced it with a higher law - effectively taking a law He had given and replacing it with another. To protect His restored church, He commanded that the practice of plural marriage cease, as described by Wilford Woodruff in Official Declaration 1, specifically in the excerpts from his address to the members of the church at the bottom of the page.
The idea of plural marriage is not unique to Mormons either. Many prophets of the Old Testament had multiple wives, and they were blessed by God for it (according to the Bible). Any who say God has never supported plural marriage have not read the Old Testament. The entire House of Israel - that is, the Jewish people - is descended from a man with four wives, Jacob (a.k.a. Israel). That means Jesus Himself is a descendant of a plural marriage. If God did not approve of plural marriage at all, at any time, it seems he would not have promised great blessings to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then fulfilled them through the descendants of their multiple wives.
You are free to dislike other religions, and you are free to argue that their doctrines are invalid or stupid or whatever, but spreading false information about them is equivalent to Microsoft's FUD campaign against Linux.
So you're saying that in a commercial setting, when you are blocked from doing your assigned task by the absence of the two people who could unblock it for you, it is preferable to do nothing instead of doing something?
I should also note that I spent the last two weeks of December cleaning up our source code (the same thing I was doing in this downtime) with my boss' permission, since he said he couldn't think of anything else for me to do. In that light, is it still unacceptable?
Of course, you are right - he who controls the source control, owns the source, so if my boss says I shouldn't do it, I won't, and I haven't since he sent me that e-mail. It's just unfortunate, because every single person in the company, including my boss, agrees that the code desperately needs some cleanup, but cleanup will never make it on to the task list because there are always new features to be implemented.
Even though a little cleanup would make new features a lot easier to implement, it probably won't happen. As long as it works, who cares if it needs cleanup, right?
Apparently that was unacceptable. ("Unacceptable" was the word my boss used.)
Most schools with a decent-sized CS department are part of the MSDN Academic Alliance (MSDNAA) through which their students get most MS products for free (for non-commercial use, of course) including various (read: a dozen?) versions/copies of Windows, Visual Studio, etc.
Everything MS on my computer right now besides Office (which is not available through MSDNAA) I got for free from MSDNAA. Which, I suppose, is really just XP and VS2k8, but who's counting?
Anyway, if your CS department is *not* a member of MSDNAA, go talk to the dean of the department about joining - as far as I know it's fairly inexpensive.
Is it wrong to speak up when you see something like this? Would you prefer I didn't say anything to maintain your peace of mind? If the people actually practiced *all* of what the Church tells them to do (specifically to not participate in extramarital sexual relations) then the spread of AIDS would be significantly slowed.
Reminds me of when Dick Cheney was invited by my school administration last year to speak at a graduation ceremony. Something like 100 people protested his appearance, spewing all manner of babble about him (political and personal) and when they didn't get their way they went and held their own graduation ceremony.
So, political figures shouldn't get a free pass either, but neither should people throw a hissy fit over a prominent political figure (especially the vice president!) giving a speech at a primarily university. Ironically this is a private university whose student body is primarily republican and is owned by a church.
As I said to someone (too many posts to this story, I'm not sure what I've said to who), most people's objections to my beliefs are based in ignorance of what I actually believe.
Your willingness to ridicule beliefs you know nothing about shows you only care about winning the argument, not about what is true or not.
I just hope you realize that your understanding of one particular religious group's belief on one particular concept does not mean that all religious groups hold that belief, nor does ridiculing or invalidating that one particular belief invalidate all other religions.
Your assertion that these men (not just the ones I mentioned, but the others that we could provide from any religion) have not thought about their beliefs is entirely baseless. Perhaps your conclusion after thinking about religion was that there is no God, but that does not mean that everyone else must come to the same conclusion, nor that they are wrong. The fact that your assertion is wrong does not mean that your conclusion is wrong, either. Simply stated, you cannot make assertions about what other people have thought about and then use that as a basis for calling them uneducated, especially when they are provably educated in various secular fields.
I will say this again: religion and science do not have to be mutually exclusive. Just because you choose to believe they are does not make it so.
Your view of God as some guy playing the Sims only works if you do not believe God is our father (in a literal descent sort of way). The Old Testament, in giving the lineage of some guy or other, refers to Adam as the son of God. We are referred to as offspring and heirs of God in the New Testament.
God is no more a guy "who likes to play the Sims with us" than a 35-year-old businessman with three kids. God simply has more power at his disposal than the businessman.
God was speaking to their understanding; that is, the people He spoke to believed the sun moved through the sky (that is, revolved around the earth), so God told them He would stop it from moving through the sky because that's what they would understand.
We often explain things to our children in simplified form, when, in fact, that simplified form is incorrect, simply because the child would not understand the full truth, but the simplified form will allow the child to later understand the full truth. Why can God not do the same?