A question for Mormon converts

[truthseeker32]

I watched the video of Abraham and found that it was quite compelling. However wrong or right it might be, my complete testimony and that of most LDS persons is in the book of mormon, not the book of abraham. So how did you overcome the obstacle of the Book Of Mormon and how do you come to explain its existence? I’m quite fond of this question actually because as we are taught in the mormon faith. The book of mormon is either true or its not. Joseph smith is either a prophet or he’s not. The great apostasy happened or it didn’t. The Mormon church is right or its not. Can’t be both. So to me, the biggest stumbling block is the book of mormon. how did you overcome it?

There are many possibilities. Here are a few:

1. The BOM was written by multiple authors thus cutting down on the time to compile the book.
2. The BOM was inspired by a supernatural force, but not a good one.
3. Sidney Rigdon wrote it: sidneyrigdon.com/criddle/rigdon1.htm

 

[RebeccaJ]

For instance the trinity…how do I wrap my head around that?

Let go of your anthropomorphic ideas about God. God is God, not a human.

Take a go at the Gospel of John. It is very Trinitarian.

Another thing is transubstantiation. How did you come to understand it? And get past the cannibalism that the mormons put on it?

It isn’t cannibalism. There you go, let that misinformation go.

Do we really understand it? No. It is a miracle. We explain it, as best we can with our limited abilities. We aren’t gods, and do not know the mind of God.

Catholics are fine with the mysteries of God. “Mystery”, not being a way of throwing your hands up in the air and saying “it’s a mystyer!”. Mystery, in the Catholic world, means God has revealed something to us and we accept what He has revealed. We don’t expect that we can understand the mysteries of God.

What has Jesus revealed about the bread and wine? Again, turn to the Gospel of John, in particularly, chapter 6. Catholics don’t see symbolism.

Go to a Catholic Church, many (or some) are open all day for anyone to walk in. Look for a candle that is burning in a deep red container. There, marks where God is present in a tabernacle. Sit there for a while, pray, and listen. No one will bother you.

Now to mormonism I’ve always had doubts about the “Golden Plates” that were found by Joseph Smith and taken back into heaven and i’m a history buff and the lack of archaeological evidence is a big one. However my mission president told me in my exit interview that the church is on the brink of proving archaeologically that the church is true but doesn’t really push for it because that would take away from the “feelings” that convert.

A nice faith-promoting rumor. I can’t say I see any evidence that would cause me to believe what he said. In the software world, we call this “promise-ware”.

I was always taught, its the spirit that converts not people or evidence, though it can be used to help “strengthen” it.

God created us as rational creatures, with the ability to reason. Since God created us as we are, we don’t struggle, searching for ways to not use what He gave us. Instead, we use what He gave us. Faith seeks understanding. The Holy Spirit guides people to understanding. Reasoning is not at odds with this process; this gift.

For myself, it was like my head is a filing cabinet, and someone slipped a file in there when I wasn’t looking.

Pray for guidance, to be protected from what is false, and for patience.

And now for the kicker, The Great Apostasy, since birth i’ve been taught this and believe it. However, since reading the Bible while on my mission i’ve come to believe that maybe, just maybe, there wasn’t one. Of course i only have the mormon bible with title headings to help “decipher” the true meanings of apostasy and all that jazz. How did you overcome that and find that the Great Apostasy never happened?

I read of all that God has done for, and in, His Church. Perhaps it has been different for you, as everyone has their own journey. But for me, Christian history was never taught to me as a Mormon, ever. You get the NT (with the Mormon spin), a description of markers that are used to convince people of a “great apostasy”, and then skip 1500 years to the Protestants, skip another 300 to Joseph Smith.

The scriptures Mormons use as evidence for a “great apostasy”, describe individuals or groups who apostatized. There is a convenient ignoring of the faithful. Discover the lives of the faithful, who we call Saints. For instance, read about St. Francis. Maybe you’ll be shocked to learn, as I was, that he lived during that time where Mormons like to point out that Protestantism was rising and God had abandoned the Catholic Church. And here we have, St. Francis, who had a calling from God to rebuild a particular little church in Italy. Not start a new religion, or turn Christ’s Church upside down. Rebuild.

Go back further, and further. Read the Early Church Fathers, who are the first defenders of the faith, and the first written accounts (outside of the Bible) of faith, seeking understanding.

Go to Mass, and pray.

 

[RebeccaJ]

I watched the video of Abraham and found that it was quite compelling. However wrong or right it might be, my complete testimony and that of most LDS persons is in the book of mormon, not the book of abraham. So how did you overcome the obstacle of the Book Of Mormon and how do you come to explain its existence? I’m quite fond of this question actually because as we are taught in the mormon faith. The book of mormon is either true or its not. Joseph smith is either a prophet or he’s not. The great apostasy happened or it didn’t. The Mormon church is right or its not. Can’t be both. So to me, the biggest stumbling block is the book of mormon. how did you overcome it?

You asked the right person that question!

 

[RebeccaJ]

xCelticx, I just remembered a booklet that was written by Bishop Duane Hunt, who was at one time the Bishop of the Salt Lake Diocese. It is called, “The Continuity of the Catholic Church”. It’s free, online, here.

 

[Jerusha]

1. The BOM was written by multiple authors thus cutting down on the time to compile the book.

1. The BOM was inspired by a supernatural force, but not a good one.

1. Sidney Rigdon wrote it: sidneyrigdon.com/criddle/rigdon1.htm

Actually, #1 and #3 are the same. #2 is a rather intellectually lazy one, mostly held by fundie Protestants. Joseph Smith could not have written the BoM on his own. He was just not well-educated enough to have done it.

According to the Criddle study, the Book of Mormon was a group, collaborative project. They found evidence of contributions by Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, and Solomon Spalding. Joseph Smith’s and Solomon Spalding’s contributions were exactly where one might expect them to be. They did not test for contributions from Lucy Smith, Ethan Smith, or Hyrum Smith.

Additionally, there is substantial plagiarism of the Bible in the book. utlm.org/booklist/titles/josephsmithsplagiarismofthebible_ub007.htm
those authors refer frequently to this book
books.google.com/books?id=Y-seB1iy8DAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=lamb+mormon&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ylPsT8eREoi02gW67NXIAQ&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=lamb%20mormon&f=false
which refutes it from a Baptist’s POV
And they don’t even touch the plagiarisms from Maccabees.

There is also evidence of plagiarisms from the works of William Shakespeare (Korihor is the prototype for him ), [yorku.ca/(name removed by moderator)ar/geoffrey_thompson.pdf](http://www.yorku.ca/(name removed by moderator)ar/geoffrey_thompson.pdf), sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/vm/vmeng.htm,
books.google.com/books/about/The_history_of_Mexico.html?id=KTcTAAAAYAAJ (two volumes), books.google.com/books?id=sV7OjiabkcUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=heimskringla+sturlason&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BFfsT7D0G4eh2QW0kqm6AQ&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=heimskringla%20sturlason&f=false, and books.google.com/books?id=_nAWAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=ethan+smith&hl=en&sa=X&ei=llfsT9-INcWi2gXFwfSrAQ&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ethan%20smith&f=false, who was Oliver Cowdery’s pastor.

Here is another resource solomonspalding.com/docs2/2001vern.htm
And another solomonspalding.com/Lib/Per1985a.htm

As you notice, many links go to solomonspalding.com/ in one way or another. He has assembled a remarkable library for researchers and people who are simply curious.

Happy reading, and I can compose another set of readings for you later, but I suspect that this will keep you busy for a year or more.

ETA: I just about forgot this:
books.google.com/books?id=B85xAAAACAAJ&dq=simon+southerton+mormon&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OFzsT53TLcz9rAHNrYneBQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA

 

[twopekinguys]

Even the apologists at the Maxwell institute are backing away from some of their defenses of the Book of Abraham.

From LDS Church News

 

[truthseeker32]

Actually, #1 and #3 are the same. #2 is a rather intellectually lazy one, mostly held by fundie Protestants. Joseph Smith could not have written the BoM on his own. He was just not well-educated enough to have done it.

I would agree with you. However what is interesting is the very first person I heard articulate the theory was a prominent scholar of Mormonism.

 

[Jerusha]

I would agree with you. However what is interesting is the very first person I heard articulate the theory was a prominent scholar of Mormonism.

The subjective reading reveals multiple authorship. The content is varied. Even the imitation King James English varies from atrocious to reasonably good (really bad errors are in the sections where Jockers and Criddle found indications of JS authorship). A highly accomplished writer would have difficulties writing the wide range of genres found in the book. And the content resembles what was available in the early 19th century, as all those old books I linked to indicate.

Those non-Mormons who persist in claiming that JS wrote it alone are generally functioning from a fundamentalist mind-set that is almost as bad as that of Mormons. They fear actually studying it. Lamb escaped that by looking at the content without dwelling on the authorship issues.

 

[in_servitude]

I have great respect for people that have such tremendous faith to walk away from the Mormon Church. That, as I understand Mormon doctrine, is the only path to hell.

Another thing is transubstantiation. How did you come to understand it? And get past the cannibalism that the mormons put on it?/QUOTE]

This is a big subject and might need it’s own thread. I just want to quickly state that this was a concern from the start for Jews. Jesus responded to it directly.

John 6:60-64

60 Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard

 

[Marie5890]

Even the apologists at the Maxwell institute are backing away from some of their defenses of the Book of Abraham.

From LDS Church News

Thanks for that Twopekingguys…

BTW I will be heading in your direction this fall after today’s announcement from the Vatican for the Mass of Thanksgiving…

 

[twopekinguys]

Thanks for that Twopekingguys…

BTW I will be heading in your direction this fall after today’s announcement from the Vatican for the Mass of Thanksgiving…

Wonderful!!

 

[twopekinguys]

I should also add that with the recent “shake up” at the Maxwell Institute, I think we are going to see a major change in their apologetic postion(s).

 

[HonoraDominum]

I watched the video of Abraham and found that it was quite compelling. However wrong or right it might be, my complete testimony and that of most LDS persons is in the book of mormon, not the book of abraham. So how did you overcome the obstacle of the Book Of Mormon and how do you come to explain its existence? I’m quite fond of this question actually because as we are taught in the mormon faith. The book of mormon is either true or its not. Joseph smith is either a prophet or he’s not. The great apostasy happened or it didn’t. The Mormon church is right or its not. Can’t be both. So to me, the biggest stumbling block is the book of mormon. how did you overcome it?

Ding Ding Ding

You have just asked the $64,000 question that all ex-Mormons have to find on their own before they finally have the veil lifted from their eyes. Is it true or is it not true? Something you are probably just becoming aware of is how difficult it is to truly lay aside those doubts and take that leap of faith into truly searching for God. It’s easy to get bogged down in the minutae of the “feelings” or these small slivers of evidence that people grasp onto to tie their beliefs to the LDS church.

But at some point, if it hasn’t already, it will hit you like a boulder- Joseph Smith lied. Let that sink in for a bit. Once that cornerstone is shattered, the rest will tumble like a house of cards. For some, it’s the Book of Abraham, for others, it’s the flip-flopping of salvation doctrine, and for some they simply wake up one morning and God has graced them with no testimony at all.

Right now, you are being drawn to God by a grace that none of us here can put into words. This grace leads many to the Catholic church if they allow God to work through this grace. They pray about it, and they ask God what He is asking of them. Many who have chosen to embrace this grace, this gift from God have lost friends, families, have had their LDS spouses leave them and ask for a divorce.

But the Truth is the Truth. And the truth is that God lives, and He loves you and wants you to be with Him forever. He wants to be united with you right now, in this life, in this moment. He wants to give you all the graces you need to do His will and to find that perfect love and happiness that only dwelling with Him can bring. He loves you, and there is nothing you can do about this Love but accept it. His love is simple, and His love is pure, and His love is perfect.

It was love that was missing when I was Mormon. I never felt good enough, I always felt like I wasn’t doing enough, or doing what I should do.

Now, through the blessed graces of God, I am much more aware of my faults, my shortcomings, my deficiencies in the virtue of charity. But I also know that God loves me anyway, and the He delights in my efforts to love Him and to resign myself to His will for love of Him. I know that God loves me, and that He loved me first. I know that I am a stupid sinner, and will fall over and over again. But through His mercy, I will be forgiven of all of these offenses, and will grow through trial and sorrow to truly be united to Him in every way. I pray constantly for the conversion of souls, so that people like who who are still trapped in the lies will be given the graces that many of us here have been given, to find that Love and to be drawn to that Divine Sun whose light is the infinite and perfect love that each one of us is made for.

 

[Marie5890]

Joseph Smith lied

And that is all that matters. He lied about many things, including the BoA, which has clearly, CLEARLY been demonstrated.

He was no prophet called of God. He was a fraud. Period.

Many Mormons are discovering this and the exodus from the LDS church going on right now in the 21st century is no small phenomenon. Members not just becoming “inactive”. Members are actively resigning, in a formal way, their membership.

 

[HonoraDominum]

Many Mormons are discovering this and the exodus from the LDS church going on right now in the 21st century is no small phenomenon. Members not just becoming “inactive”. Members are actively resigning, in a formal way, their membership.

I didn’t formally resign until I had been a baptized Catholic for five years, and my mother revealed to me that she was no longer Mormon either. She’s Baptist now, the church of her youth, but at least she’s worshiping the right Jesus and spending time in the Baptist version of Lectio Divina every day. It’s a start. Blessed be God and His graces upon those who love Him!

The heartbreaking part about most of those who leave the Mormon church is that they do not only lose their belief in Joseph Smith, but most also lose their belief in God. For many, they never regain that belief. They go from believing an entity that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike like the biblical Christ to denying the existence of any God at all. They are taught from the time they realize that Jesus wants them for a Sun-BEAM!!! that the only logical concept for God is as an exalted man with a physical body, and are taught a distaste for the “Christian” God who has no body, no form, and how can something like that even be real? Children are taught that the “Atonement” in the garden of Gethsemone was the defining moment in the death of Christ, and that the Death was just an unfortunate happenstance. Mormons are taught at an early age to have an aversion to crosses, crucifixes, Mary, and anything that smacks of the untrue non-Mormon Christian religions. It’s a one-two punch of teaching lies about the true nature of God and indoctrinating an aversion to anything that points to the truth. Mormons are taught an A-B spirituality - if you do A, then B. If you pray for the prayer at the end of Moroni, you will get a burning in the bosom. (Also, if you don’t then obviously you’re sinning, or you didn’t pray sincerely, or something, and it’s not the fault of the promise but of you.)

So to come to a church that has crosses everywhere you look, and crucifixes everywhere, and prayers to Mary, and the presentation of the Creed in every Sunday Mass, is the exact opposite of everything Mormons are taught all their life. They’re taught not to have “repetitive prayer” and there we are praying the Our Father every week. They’re taught that the Atonement was where the burden of sin was lifted from mankind, whereas Catholics teach that the agony in the garden was not the apex of the Passion, but the beginning, the resignation of Christ to suffer for us, and that the entirety of the Passion was the redemptive act. And this sacrifice is presented every week on our altars. No wonder so many Mormons become Agnostics at best, and Atheists as a worst case scenario. It’s not like people with no religion who have to be taught everything, or Protestants who have to add tradition onto the trinitarian theology they are already familiar with. Mormons have to first be untaught of all of the misconceptions and the lies of the Mormon church, and THEN retaught the truth about the nature of God, of Christ, of the Passion, of Mary, and of the authority of Christ on the earth.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, who has been so wounded by the coldness of man, please give grace to those who have been deceived by the lies of the Mormon church. Give them the grace of humility so that they can admit to themselves that they believed a lie, and pour Your love into their hearts to heal their deep and painful wounds. Guide them gently to Your beloved son, our Eucharistic Lord, and let them feel the warmth of their Divine Sun on their soul who desires more than anything to be united to the one who can give them that true love that they were made for. Through their return of love for love, may your heart be given consolation and happiness.

 

[lynnettejane]

xCelticx
The Mormon church stands or falls with Joseph Smith and that is a simple fact, no amount of mormon defenders can get around that one.
We had a family legend about a great uncle of mine which was always accepted as true. During the course of family research I have found a very different story, that has totally blown the original out of the water. Why? Because he was a bad lad, and bad lads run fowl of the law and leave a paper trail. So I now have a more enlightened story about my GG uncle, not the sanitised version that was told to the family, probably out of shame. Same with JS, he was a bad lad and left a well documented paper trail that attests to that fact. Now Mormons can either look at the evidence that thankfully is now available to all, and either bury their heads and trot out the old complaint about persecution, or they can accept the reality that he was a charlatan, and as it turns out, a good one and see the story and his claims in a different light. Many have and left that chuch. This isn’t because I want to see thousands leaving the LDS, but because of the claims that it makes about being the one true restored gospel, nothing else is true, they say as far as Christ’s church is concerned , which poses a challenge to the rest of the Christian community, and to which they have responded. So examine Joseph Smith in the light of the evidence, which is on the net, and see if the story you know as a Mormon, and the story the evidence presents you with match up. If they don’t then whether the BOM or PoGP, or BoA, are true or not becomes irrelevent.

 

[Nabooru]

I once called Mormonism “Victorian Scientology”. I thought it was pretty clever: god from another planet, brothers fighting over the destiny of earth with fierce battles, a heavenly emperor with ten thousand concubines for the story, and absolute obedience, suppression of thought, ostracization and persecution of those that leave, and a general wariness of those outside of it. I wonder if L. Ron Hubbard is a descendant of Joe Smith?

 

[Jessup]

Great post; I’m actully going through the inverted version of what your going through
Cheers!

 

[Jerusha]

I wonder if L. Ron Hubbard is a descendant of Joe Smith?

I know you mean that jokingly. However, there is a difference between cultural heritage and descent. This is one of the most serious flaws of Mormonism. Just because one’ ancestors may have been seriously sinful/criminal people does not mean that they inherit that sin/guilt. People choose to overcome negative aspects of their cultural heritage. Mormons believe that sin/guilt are inherited (except for Adam and Eve’s ). This is one of the reasons why they are in such denial of the sinful behaviors of some of their ancestors (for multi-generational LDS). And their excuse for practicing discrimination based on race and ancestry. As well as temple rites. It is integral to their religion, yet contrary to the spirit of the Constitution.

 

[truthseeker32]

I know you mean that jokingly. However, there is a difference between cultural heritage and descent. This is one of the most serious flaws of Mormonism. Just because one’ ancestors may have been seriously sinful/criminal people does not mean that they inherit that sin/guilt. People choose to overcome negative aspects of their cultural heritage. ** Mormons believe that sin/guilt are inherited (except for Adam and Eve’s ).** This is one of the reasons why they are in such denial of the sinful behaviors of some of their ancestors (for multi-generational LDS). And their excuse for practicing discrimination based on race and ancestry. As well as temple rites. It is integral to their religion, yet contrary to the spirit of the Constitution.

While this has been taught by a few fringe Mormons it is not official LDS doctrine, and is not commonly held. Mormons firmly believe that an individual is accountable only for their own personal sins. Lets play fair.