Anyone on here originally gain a testimony of the BofM based on the Moroni challenge in 10:5? If so, had do you reconcile that experience with your current disillusionment with it?

Sorry. I failed the challenge. Read the book 20 plus times, prayed a lot. Nothing happened.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,12217,12302#msg-12302


I'll repeat what I wrote there too (just because).

Moroni 10:5 and D&C 9 are both used to indicate how to gain a testimony. Moroni never specifies how the spirit testifies, just promises it will. D&C 9 is the phenomenology of how.

Recall that D&C 9 talks about studying it out in your mind, then praying. If it be true, you get heart burn (burning in your bosom). If not, you feel stupid (a stupor) about what you were studying.

Can you describe the heart burn? (I know what it is, I had it many times with head-to-toe enveloping experiences.)

Most members invariably talk about feeling overwhelmed with feelings of love, of pure knowledge and a lifting feeling of the spirit. Some even go as far as claiming they've heard a voice or saw a light.

My problem with this is, most cultures and religious systems have these same experiences and signs. Hindus have the kundalini & chakras, some of which have manifestations of elation, lifting and pure knowledge while meditating. Islam has the "hajj experience" and islamic transformation that are essentially just as strong or more than the mormon burning, as exampled by those who feel so emboldened as to commit suicide for their testimony. Other xtian churches have spiritual manifestations in feelings, tongues and miracles. Miracles claimed to catholicism, sightings of Mary, and even the tens of thousands having seen lights and visions at the zeitoun cathedral (Smith had his three witnesses, the Virgin her tens-of-thousands). Sathya Sai Baba is claimed to perform many many healings, materializations and other miracles. And the list goes on. How can you claim all these witnesses are false and mormons, who make up 0.2% of the world's population, are so much better? All these deeply felt spiritual manifestations are claimed to testify that each belief is true. A spectrum of beliefs that are often contrary to the others at some level.

So I would ask, if such strong feelings and visions can testify of such diverse and opposing beliefs, how can you trust them? For that matter, food can alter mood, and medical science routinely alters mood, perception and even the experience of reality with drugs ranging from prozac to LSD. It doesn't require pharmacology to alter perceptions. Mental illness, brain injury or even just depression does it often without the victim's awareness. how can you believe or trust your feelings to tell you any truth?

No, spiritual experience based on warm chests and stupid thoughts are not truth meters.

So we're back to the facts. And they speak volumes against moism.

You'll get little argument here. I think most of us would agree.

I never did either. But to those that have, realize that you were told that you would have that experience when you do the steps. You are programmed to have the experience. If it were a real promise, it would have been far more clear and precise in its details, and have physical, real-world evidence to back up its claims. Further, it would be universal, like gravity, and consistent. It would naturally fit with reality and not require any kind of hoop jumping. It would have no dependence on your belief or disbelief on it working.

So, in other words, you wouldn't need this type of promise if the book and its claims were actually true. The promise, to me, is a red flag - and indicator of the deception and delusion being attempted.

from the age of 10 days old then AND you've been conditioned to believe that every emotion that you feel is communication from the Holy Ghost AND you significant family/peer pressure to receive an answer - then you'll probably obtain an emotional response after reading the BOM.

The BOM has a few story's that evoke an emotional response. The church is a set upon a foundation of manipulating the emotions. As a young BYU student, I read the bit about Christ's return to America. It was beautiful, and I pictured it happening, with Christ kneeling with the little children, and the angels and all. Right there and then I began to cry realizing that this was my answer.

I also had the same response when watching the Patriot, Braveheart, and a host of other movies. Knowing all of the facts and using my brain has helped me reconcile 40 years of cult conditioning and manipulation.

Yes, I did get a testimony that way. I did credit that as part of my conversion process (I was a teenage convert - stayed in the morg until my mid 30's)

Have ever seen a real heavy evangelical meeting? after getting everyone worked up with 'praising the Lord' the pastor goes around and touches one of the congregation on the forehead... two 'helpers' stand behind ready to catch the 'victim' as they fall to the floor

It's a kind of NLP. you tell the person what to expect and subconsciously they expect to react just the way you told them to.
Mormons 'burn in the bosom', evangelicals fall down, pentecostals talk in tongues.

its simple psychology

Contrary to LDS belief, the burning in the bosom or warm sensation in the chest is not exclusively theirs.

John Wesley wrote about an experience he had where he had an unusual warm sensation in his chest.

We should remember that this counsel is given to Oliver who was having a hard time translating. As we know, Josephs preferred method was to use his seer stone, while Oliver was an accomplished Rodsman, using a divining rod instead of a stone.
Compare D&C 8 with Book of Commandments 7
http://www.2think.org/hundredsheep/boc/boc7.shtml

"7:3 O remember, these words and keep my commandments. Remember this is your gift. Now this is not all, for you have another gift, which is the gift of working with the rod: behold it has told you things: behold there is no other power save God, that can cause this rod of nature, to work in your hands, for it is the work of God; and therefore whatsoever you shall ask me to tell you by that means, that will I grant unto you, that you shall know. "

As D.Michael Quinn has pointed out, in order for the divining rod to work, a perrson must ask a question and the rod will move according to Yes or No.

While Josephs stone showed the parchment in visionary form, it is possible that Oliver thoughjt that he could determine the plates' contents by the movement of the rod.

And if the burning in the bosom is the key to knowledge, Oliver would have had to ask if the passage he had imagined was correct, and then wait for an answer.

Oliver left all of the translating to Joseph after this.

It seems you cannot read the plates when they are not there with a rod like you can with a stone hiden deep inside your hat.

I have to laugh whenever I hear the word "rodsman."

Nope--never worked. I was also conditioned to believe. I wanted the "pretty picture" they taught me I could have if I was good. I'd say most of my "testimony" came from my personal "spiritual" experiences. I can't say I had a testimony of Joseph Smith. I had a testimony of God and Jesus Christ--but not of JS. I just didn't worry about it.

I find it interesting that I read the BofM at least 6 or 7 times. My boyfriend--not a mormon--read it before he moved to Utah some 32 years ago--and he still remembers more of it than I do.

> Nope--never worked. I was also
> conditioned to believe. I wanted
> the "pretty picture" they taught
> me I could have if I was good.


People react differently to NLP and - it's rather unsubtle big brother - hypnotism.

some react more strongly, other not at all

I think I failed it because I used my brain while reading it. It just seemed so over the top and contrived. I remember thinking that God must think we are really naive and dumb or something, that maybe I needed to dumb down to feel the spirit. There were some good parts, like 3 Nephi which I tried to dwell on a lot and parts of 1 Nephi I thought were pretty good, but most of it bothered me. And then the whole Ether thing...whatever. In general it was just tedious and had Elizabethan English to make it sound biblical. For every good thing in it I would come across something that seemed ridiculous or just flat out wrong. Lots of times I just put it down out of frustration.

See my other topic I created in response to this called "The God Helmet"

Honestly, I felt nothing while praying to ask if it was true. The thing about it is we prayed as a family. One of my sisters, the more impressionable one, started crying in the middle of Father's prayer. When he was done, he said that was the spirit testifying through her. My 12-year-old mind asked, well why testify only through her and not me? Why not all of us even? But the group dynamics required me to nod my head and say "yes'.

I expected to receive that crying spell on my baptismal day. None came, and I was a little worried that there was something wrong with me, perhaps my receptors weren't ready or 'sharp' enough? I was baptized during the time when the blessing came right after being dunked. I'd hoped to feel the spirit and start crying. Nothing. I walked around after that pretending something special happened b/c, hey you know you are now clean before god.

We were baptized on an early Sat afternoon. When we got back home, i lay in bed and wondered "what if this wasn't all true?" What if Joseph Smith were not a true prophet. I should've listened to myself then, but the fear of a leather belt against my leg were greater than my curiosity then.

I don't know! I was born into the church and left at age 19 the son of the Stake Pres, and Seminary Graduate, and I had never finished that ^%%$# boring book!