Not quite as bad as the other, but in context of the first...
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,761186

After promising his audience that walking in the path of the gospel taught by Mormonism, they would receive blessings in this life and the next, he goes onto ask how to find the actual truth. What does he say?

at around 36:50
http://www.lds.org/broadcasts/watch/ces-devotionals/2013/01?lang=eng

"How can we know that this truth is different from any other? How can we trust this truth? The invitation to trust the lord does not relieve us from resposnibility to know for ourselves. This is more than an opportunity; it is an obligation, my young friends. It is an obligation. It is one of the reasons we were sent to this earth. Latter day saints are not asked to blindly accept everything they hear. We are encouraged to think and discover truth for ourselves. We are expected to ponder, to search and to evaluate and thereby come to a personal knowledge of the truth. Brigham Young said that 'I'm afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of god whether they are lead by him...Let every man and woman know by the whisperings of the spirit of god to themselves whether their leaders are walking in the path the lord dictates.'

" We seek for truth whereever we may find it. JS taught that 'Mormonism is truth. The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men, or by the dominations of one another, when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our minds, and we have the highest degree of evidence of the same.' "


Remember the audience--seminary/institute students. So about 4 minutes before this, he was telling the students to not look at all the information.

That was starting at 33:00


" For those who already embrace the truth his primary strategy is to spread the seeds of doubt. For example he[The Devil] has caused many members of the church to stumble when they discover information about the church that seems to contradict what they had learned previously. If you experience such a moment remember that in this age of information there are many who create doubt about anything and everything at anytime and everyplace. You will find even those who still claim that they have evidence that the earth is flat. That the moon is a hologram. It looks like it a little bit. And that certain movie stars are really aliens from another planet. And it is always good to keep in mind just because something is printed on paper, appears on the internet, is frequently repeated or has a powerful group of followers doesn't make it true. Sometimes untrue claims or information are presented in such a way that they appear quite credible; however, when you are confronted with information that is in conflict with the revealed word of God remember that the blind men in the parable of the elephant would never be able to accurately describe the full truth. We simply don't know all things. We can't see everything. What may seem contradictory now may be perfectly understandable as we search for and receive more trustworthy information. Because we see through a glass darkly we have to trust the Lord who sees all things clearly. "



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2013 02:35PM by Jesus Smith.

"We are expected to ponder, to search and to evaluate and thereby come to a personal knowledge of the truth." - as long as it matches what we tell you. *wink wink*

What a complete set up. He spends all this time telling these young peeps how important truth is and how we are all susceptible to getting it wrong— and mostly that we all should work hard to find the truth— only to in the end tell them what truth they should find (the Gospel) and the source to whom they should look for it (the LDS Church). Kinda like a drug pushers telling you how great meth is.

It's quite ironic— the whole idea. "Beware of people who tell you things. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about."

Think some youtube video responses need to be made to this little gem.

More evidence these lying mother****ers know exactly what they are doing and use every opportunity to extend the con.

The local leaders rolled a visiting GA in on me when I stopped attending many years ago...a one-on-one with a real live Special Witness to resolve all my concerns! The Japanese Token dude, I forget his name now. Anyway, as I stated my concerns with doctrine, history, changes, contradictions, etc. his response was to bear testimony.

The kicker was, he stated that as a young man he received an unmistakable supernatural, otherworldly-type personal witness the gospel was true. When I asked about the details of the visit, he demurred with something along the lines of, "It's so sacred, I can't talk about it."

Because I had lost all respect for their BS by that point, I said, "Well Elder, I'm glad angels or God or Jesus visited you, but I'm still waiting." I'm a damn good judge of character if I don't say so myself. When he couldn't meet my gaze, there was no doubt in my mind he was lying and he knew I knew he was lying. They hustled him out to meet with some other former high-tithe payer gone bad shortly thereafter.

To have faith in what feels and seems right is ok.. I feel Christianity is right, and have faith in Christ. There is evidence Christ existed. Most of the places and figures in the Bible were/are real places and people.

Everything in The Book of Mormon is fiction.

To reject all facts and history is insanity. All evidence beyond any reasonable doubt shows Joseph Smith and early LDS leaders as anti-social liars and con-men.

There's evidence Christ existed? Where?

maybe delt1995 is thinking of Flavius Josephus mentioning him in Antiquities of the Jews (I know he was not around at the same time).

A Christian believer will accept the New Testament writings as 'evidence' that Jesus existed.

I tend to believe that these characters like Jesus, Paul, Peter etc were real historical people, though I don't accept the supernatural interpretation they give to their experiences. I might be wrong but personally I don't believe.

mormon god sure is a confusing fellow.

The first witness of this dispensation had no problem "talking about it" JS broadcast it every time he could. I never understood this reply.

Exactly my thoughts as Elder Kikuchi (remembered his name today - I'm not senile!) beat about the bush regarding his sacred, spiritual visitor/witness experience. I wanted to ask him if God or whoever told him not to talk about it or was it his choice to hide his light under a basket. But I didn't.

I was so pissed at being scammed the first few years, I'm sure he felt my take-no-prisoners countenance during that meeting. He lost the upper hand immediately when he opened the door with a question about what I had learned that had damaged my testimony so much. I opened the floodgates with JS sending men on missions and then marrying their wives, marrying teenagers, hiding everything from Emma, hiding it from other members, smashing printing presses, and outright stealing from members in Kirtland.

He started to say he wasn't sure Joseph did all that and I blasted him with sources from the church. His gaze went to the floor for the rest of the meeting and he fell back on his testimony/oh too sacred to talk about special vistor story before the SP knocked on the door and escorted him out. They had three or four apostates like me queued up for the GA to set straight that day I believe.

I was already long gone out the door mentally, so the only reason I bothered to show up was I wanted to let them know my reason for leaving the church had nothing to do with being offended, wanting to drink coffee or any other lame ass excuse they would tell the rest of the ward.

When I left, I almost felt sorry for him because he seemed like a genuine, humble dude. I was polite to him, but firm. Had it been a BIC, Utah-based GA, I'm sure he would have fired back in kind. The stake leadership had set him up for failure at least in my case, because the SP knew full well I was one ticked off SOB and wasn't changing my mind about anything.

Wouldn't the double speak cause a short circuit in Uctdorf's brain at some point? The cog dis has to be so painful.

When they make Top 15, they absolutely know and understand how the scam operates. So they have zero cog dis -- they know the truth.

But, they're made men the instant their lucky number comes up to join the big boys, so who is going to go against a lifetime of those perks? Not one of those spineless liars apparently. They've all gone to their graves mum.

Makes me think they must sign an Apostolic agreement that their families will be cast down to the Sodomites in the state pen if they ever grow a backbone and attempt to speak up. The Corp holds a serious ax over their head somehow...even after death.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2013 01:53PM by iflewover.

That cat is out of the bag. This is the only way they can handle this historical/BoM/BoA/Temple problems. Skirt the issues, and hope for the best. If the church actually did a really theological study of the issues. The revenue (Tbms) heads would explode. I can't see them ever being honest. I weighed the truth out and found the church is shit.

study the gospel.... BUT NOT LIKE THAT !

stupid ass MORmONS !

"How can we know that this truth is different from any other? How can we trust this truth?"

He asks exactly the right questions and then disappointingly never seems to really answer them in any clear and helpful manner.

This BS and obfuscation is just so plainly obvious to me now.

The obfuscation is intentional too. When I was TBM, I would listen to the apostles talk like this, waiting for little sprinkles to fall on the cupcake that would sweeten my testimony. I mean, I believed they step around the issue of seeing god & christ, but that's because I need faith. I believed they have deep knowledge that they couldn't reveal, but that they were trying to carefully give us the steps to get there ourselves if we exercised our agency.

What I see now is purposeful obfuscation and perhaps intentional deceit. Uchtdorf doesn't really have cog diss problems because his integrity is nagging at him about confusion. He has integrity gaps which he sods over with fine real estate and forgivable loans.