And what terms would those be? Oh, I suppose his fictional books are still misleading people, but not personally. It is not my call where he spends eternity, but after all he did as a false prophet, I hope he has asbestos underwear.
Hey! Stop it with the asbestos underwear talk, already! I mean, that’s like saying you hope someone is ready for the suffering you
just know they surely deserve. Sheesh, like if someone were to say the vile sinner
deserves some violent consequence for being so wrong. Um, is thinking someone is eligible for eternal suffering in hell worse than thinking they should die for their wrongs, or is it not as bad? I’m just trying to weigh your righteous Catholic commentary against the unrighteous Mormon commentary of Brigham Young. Maybe you hoped Joseph Smith had asbestos underwear because you are charitably concerned for the comfort of the poor man’s soul while it roasts in hell?
My own suspicion is that he’s spending “eternity” in nirvana, even without having to achieve buddha-hood! They probably buried him in his regular underwear.
Me either. That is why I post only the truth. I am only here to post the truth after folks like you come here with a false and whitewashed version of what the LDS Church has stood for.
I don’t know… it gets to the root of my problems. Problems? Maybe… they don’t bother me, like an ingrown toenail or something; but you say you know the truth about my Church and that I only have a false and whitewashed version of it. “Whitewashed” is the code word that anti-Mormons always use, like it’s part of their creed or something; as if they’re spouting the “non-thought of received ideas” (as I believe you are). I’m an agnostic, and I don’t know whether or not any portrayal of my Church is accurate, and have no particular reason to “whitewash” it. None of our Churches are really what we think they are. We only catch glimpses of what we’d like them to be. All I know is that if my Church stands for anything now, or ever stood for something in the past, it can only have done so or continue to do so in my mind as I choose to interpret it. That’s what people are converted to, the good they see and not what they choose to overlook.
Thus, in the words of a 70’s television show, later made famous by Adam Savage, “I reject your reality and substitute my own!” Why should anyone believe anything? Answer me! Sometimes I think that a thing is true only because someone believes that it is. Truth is mostly a label used by the propagandist to change people’s minds, and the man-made idea of orthodoxy has always been an enabler of systemic evil and of hatred.
Again, not at all. I understand why you blindly post. You claim I post selectively. I have taken direct quotes from alleged prophet about the need to spill blood to avenge sin, and you act like the quotes mean nothing because they are out of context. The problem is, you make the claim without showing the entire discourse from those alleged prophets and showing how the rest of their talk somehow makes the blood talk less bloody. You can;t. I have posted truth and you can;t honestly refute it, so you make claims you cannot substantiate. I totally understand. Often, when I have no support for an argument, I, too, will make baseless claims. Sometimes, it is all we have.
I’ll leave the arguing about quotes and claims to the Mormon apologists who think they have all manner of support. I admit I haven’t cared enough about Mormon apologetics to find out all of the alleged facts from their perspective. So, whose apologist should I believe? On what grounds? Each will call the other a liar and produce some sort of reason for it.
Anyway, if Mormon apologists have accurate sources, these serve to comfort the doubting Mormon by making
your claims look like a bunch of twisted lies, labeled as truth, that have been honestly refuted a thousand times over. You call them misleading, they call you misleading. Who’s right? Ohhh, it’s you? How can I know that?
And what do I care? My doubts go much deeper than the past dealings of silly men and the modern squabbles over historical fact. Every scandalous allegation hurled by rabid anti-Mormons could be historic truth for all I care, and we’re still here in this world trying to pour our own meaning into things and find the bits of good that speak to our hearts from among the wreckage of fallen men, even the likes of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Hey, I don’t whitewash stuff. I paint it with all kinds of colors. White is so boring.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians that Jesus would choose the foolish and weak things of the world to confound the mighty. Maybe Joseph Smith was the weakest fool of them all. Why couldn’t the Mormon believe that Jesus might speak to them through a money-digging womanizer? Good heavens, the Lord chose a traitor to be one of his own apostles! Prophets have always been reviled by the people, for we have always pretended to know just whom the Lord couldn’t possibly choose for his mouthpiece.
Ah…well, Thomas Jefferson knew what theft was. Richard Stallman is a computer programmer. An odd person to get the definition of theft from, or from whom to obtain the idea of right and wrong. The bottom line, it was stolen. All your whitewashing and computer programmer ideas cannot change that. Joseph was a thief. He ised the works of others to develop his books and ceremonies.
No, the bottom line is just that he used the works of others to develop his books and ceremonies. I’m hardly alone, even among Catholics, in claiming that using the ideas of others is not thievery. OK, there are times when copying stuff is ethical and times when it is not. You think Joseph Smith did it unethically because you’re predisposed to think every ill of him. I, on the other hand, don’t see how that’s obvious. Early Mormons–good people–clearly recognized the masonic roots of their temple worship, because they were freemasons. They didn’t seem concerned about thievery (Oh no! I’m believing in some stolen ideas!). Influences from the KJV Bible and other sources are readily apparent in the Book of Mormon. There’s nothing to suggest that these influences were so unethically utilized as to call them stealing. At best, Joseph is only possibly a thief. All your blackwashing and, um, non-computer programmer ideas cannot change that.
Never heard the use of truth considered polemic before, but ok.
Well, polemic has nothing to do with content but with presentation. You and I are having a pretty good row, whereas other kinds of arguments might but be presented in a less-polemical tone. It’s the tone of the speech that constitutes polemic.
Similarly, belief has little to do with content and everything to do with quality. Whatever story we most fervently believe in becomes the most unassailable of truths. You claim that saying something is true can’t change the truth of the thing… I say, maybe it is precisely with language that truth is made. Some kinds of truth, anyway; religious truth almost certainly. Sigh… I’m sounding like Thomas Hobbes now. He made some Catholics mad too. Well, I suppose even Mormons would disagree with me. Many of them are perfectly certain of their truth too.
