For a true believer you can have a list as long as the longest town name in Welsh; Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

But that isn't even the longest name which goes to a place in Thailand: Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokphopnop- paratrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharnamornphimarnavatarnsathit- sakkattiyavisanukamprasit

But I digress.

So how many untruths? What is the magic number?

A truly open and questioning person will look at the mountains of problems in Mormonism, its history and doctrine and cannot help but come to the conclusion that it is untrue.

1) Book of Abraham issues
2) Lying for the Lord
3) Cult like qualities
4) Lack of archaeological and other evidence for the veracity of the BoM
5) Un-Christian behavior
6) Lack of evidence for a restoration of the "primitive" church
7) Multiple differing 1st vision accounts
8) Shady character of Joseph Smith

. . .

And the list goes on.

Why is it that Mormons cannot see what is going on with the church?

How can intelligent people, who can see problems in other venues (like MLM's etc), not see the same issues with the Mormon Church?

They still squeal "I know it's true!"

I was reading "eSkeptic: Emily Rosa and the Therapeutic Touch Wars" which is about how a school girl did experiments on healing touch and showed that the practitioners could not do what they claimed. The experiment was written up and was actually published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). (Preliminary results of the experiment were originally published in Skeptic magazine vol. 4, no. 4 (1996) and vol. 5, no. 2 (1997)

Basically part of the gist of the article is to look at any claim and set up tests to prove or disprove the claim.

How many claims in Mormonism must be shown false before the whole is said to be false? 1? 1000?

People need to seperate what appear to be genuine spiritual experiences from the church.

My main problem, and one that I have watched others grapple with, is that despite finding out that the church is not true, there are still things of the spirit which must be accounted for. My experience was that due to the teachings of my whole life I believed that the church was the sole proprietor of those experiences.

Because we are taught to think that those experiences are only genuine when associated with the church, people will hold to the testimony of those experiences despite the evidence against the church.

One of my own cures for this dilemma was going to other churches and reading online tstimonies from members of various faiths. Many of those are far more impressive than anything I have experienced and none of them have the LDS Priesthood.

That sounds a little black and white, I know. But the church IS black and white. I don't have the quote, but I remember a quote from one of the prophets that said that either JS was a prophet or he wasn't. I got a printout of that one the first week I went to church after I started questioning. It was good timing for me, just when I had come across a bunch of problems with the B of M. It helped nudge me out the door.

I can't tell you HOW many times I heard that if the B of M is true, that PROVES the church is true and makes JS a prophet. Actually, that's not completely true. Just because a person gets SOMETHING right (and to clarify, the B of M does NOT fit into that category), doesn't mean it came from God or that EVERYTHING they say is truth. But it most certainly works the other way: if you catch someone (who claims to get revelation from the creator of the universe) spreading a lie or even accidental misinformation, you shouldn't trust them.

But the difficult part is that it's to prove to a believer (including myself at one time) that the church teaches something that can be proven not to be true:

They'll make excuses (we just haven't FOUND the horse bones or steel swords yet)

They'll discredit the information (Those scientists/egyptologists/exmormons are just tools of Satan, trying to hide the truth)

They'll use manipulation, threats, faith, feelings, and fear to make people doubt their intellectual conclusions. (Tell you you'll lose your family, apply social pressure, testimonies, exhortations to hold on because we'll understand in the next life, or shun you if you leave).

They'll rewrite church teachings so the facts don't embarrass them or conflict with new evidence. (We never said that the American continent was EMPTY when the nephites came over . . . they intermarried with the native americans and THAT's why we can't find the hebrew DNA. The Nephites were only AMONG the ancestors of the American Indians).

It's easy to find things that aren't true in the church. But for a believer, it's hard ACCEPT them. If a true believer can ACCEPT that the church has taught something that is blatantly untrue, then I think they will be on their way out.

I like it when TBM's claim that Satan has changed the evidence to make it look untrue. I have also heard the claim that God does the same thing to test the faith of the true believers. In Satan's case, does he or she really have nothing better to do? In God's case, What a bully!

AquaLeo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I like it when TBM's claim that Satan has changed
> the evidence to make it look untrue. I have also
> heard the claim that God does the same thing to
> test the faith of the true believers. In Satan's
> case, does he or she really have nothing better
> to do? In God's case, What a bully!


The "god one" always kills me! OK god had an ancient profit scratch a important record into plates made of gold(I guess because gold was so plentiful, that people were using it for everything back then...), hide it in a hill, then many years later god decided it was important enought to make a special appearance to a teenager, tell him where the record was, help him translate it, and tell the teenager to make sure everyone heard about his true religion.

Then God went about to hide all the evidence that these people where ever here. He turned the horse bones into deer, made all the metal swords look like arrowheads, took back the gold book, made the Book of Abraham say something different when real translators read it, made the DNA seem Asian, Gave the priesthood to men so they could heal people but they still die, made Joe Smith tell 4 different stories about his first vision....the list goes on, and on.

At some point you have to say, "You know what God, if this religion is so important to you, how about a little help... If not help would you please stop hiding the evidence?!! All this poligamy and stuff is kooky enough without you helping the other side."

Or it's all just a bunch of BS

And to add to this point of yours:

"OK god had an ancient profit scratch a important record into plates made of gold(I guess because gold was so plentiful, that people were using it for everything back then...), hide it in a hill, then many years later god decided it was important enought to make a special appearance to a teenager, tell him where the record was, help him translate it, and tell the teenager to make sure everyone heard about his true religion."

. . . If you were any of the Nephites who had to pound out his history into metal plates, or Mormon who had to abridge the whole darn mess, or Moroni who had to lug the things (along with Urim and Thummim, Liahona, sword of Laban, etc) who knows how many miles to escape the Lamanites . . . wouldn't you be a little p*Ss@#! to find out that most of the time the plates weren't even present in the room when Joseph Smith was translating them! What the . . . ?! And even if they were in the room, they were wrapped in linen. Even if they weren't wrapped in linen, it doesn't matter, cause ol' Joe had his face in a dadgum hat.

(See Grant Palmer's "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins," pages 3 and 4 for further light and knowledge on the matter)

Why is blind faith considered a virtue anyway?

If desirable traits were selected and valued for an advance party to colonize a new planet, blind faith would not be on it.

martinf Wrote:
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> Why is blind faith considered a virtue anyway?
>
> If desirable traits were selected and valued for
> an advance party to colonize a new planet, blind
> faith would not be on it.


THIS!!!!!
This question is at the root of all of the arguments. If God's work and glory is to make us more like him, shouldn't the ability to do rightoues things with power/agency and avoid doing unrightoues things with power/agency be the real lesson to be learned on this Earth? I can't imagine that the real test is whether or not we are sufficiently gullible/faithful to believe any old dude's story about how God told him what is best for us. That just does not make sense and flys in the face of our ability to aquire some or all of the Glory of God (intelligence).

What are the characteristics of Christ that render him a wonderful follower of the Father?

Obedience to what he KNOWS is right?...check.

Ability to use his power for good and avoid using it for evil?... Check

Willingness to believe something despite ALL evidence to the contrary?.....DOUBT IT

The argument that God wants us to be basically willfully stupid and believe things that evidence contradicts is just unsound when viewed within the context of our being placed on Earth to become more like God.

Honestly ask yourself this:

1. Are you more happy or less happy as your involvement in Mormonism increases?

2. Are you more happy or less happy as your involvement in Mormonism decreases?

Recall that Mormons frequently refer to the gospel as the "plan of happiness." The Book of Mormon teaches that "wickedness never was happiness." Mormons often claim that unhappiness is a result of sin. Okay, are you more sinful or less sinful the more you become involved in Mormonism? Are you more or less happy?

The answer is obvious and always was, at least for me.

One, proving that Mormonism is a fraud? That can be done, and has been done. Exactly how many proofs does it take is asking how many proofs does it take to discredit any other claim? Maybe one, maybe ten; probably depends on the size and complexity of any claim and the "proof" that discredits it.

Two, what I take it you might be asking is really, "how do I get TBMs to deconvert?" That may not be exactly what you're asking, but that's how I saw your statement.

That one is tricky because for all of history (and even prehistory) people have believed things that were completely not true. But if people were happy with those, who cared?

Nobody.

So deconversion really takes on more of an emotional aspect. Some kind of crack has to happen for people to really question; otherwise, I really think that people who are happy just assume that their happiness comes from their religion (even though it doesn't).

I personally do not care to deconvert. However if someone tries to force Mormonism or XChristianity down my throat they will get an earful back of things that are not "true."

Come after me and my unbeliefs, you are asking to get doctrinally douched.

However, I do see some family members who would be happier outside of Mormonism.

In those cases, it's hard for me not to want to deconvert.

I think most TBM's would wake up to un-truthfullness of the church if they would ACTUALLY LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE.

The problem is that they are too brainwashed to look at anything that in not faith promoting.

believed by many. Here are some that you might take offense to or argue and try to defend and bring mounds of one-sided or antiquated studies or testimonials to support. So for mormons it is not that hard to believe that they still wish to believe.
ALAR scare
Love canal
Silicone breast implants
DDT
Acupuncture (actually promoted by the CDC) (I call it Quackupuncture)
Chiropractic (Chiroquacktic to me)
Vitamin supplements
Herbal remedies
Amalgam fillings
Vaccines and autism

Many of you hold dear to some of these studies, beliefs, scares and may have mounds of testimonials and even studies to prove your side. The mormons also have testimonials and studies to support their side. The problem is the evidence is overwhelmingly against the church. They just don't even want to look at it.

Add healing touch to the list.

And i call them quackterpracters.