For those who felt deceived

[ttribe]

You can catch me next time and get me back.

Like angles and angels...from a math prof.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Is your name Jeff K?

FYI,

I think LOAP was just throughing that out there for anybody, I dont think he was responding to any specific poster. I could be wrong.

[beastie]

I read the entire 7 volume set of History of the Church...and a whole bunch of other books (can't remember them right now)...some were permanently in our apartment, some were borrowed from members.

So you were allowed to read all this stuff, or were you breaking the rules?

[ttribe]

So you were allowed to read all this stuff, or were you breaking the rules?

I was pretty uptight about the rules...if it was against the rules, I sure didn't know it.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Wow. When I was a missionary back in the dark ages, we were only allowed to read the scriptures and a couple of other books: Miracle of Forgiveness, Jesus The Christ, and later Drawing on the Power of Heaven.

You should know that that was all I was allowed to read, however I guess you could say I broke the rules a little on that one.

Our mission was limited to the standard works and Jesus The Christ, and the missionary guide of course.

"It looks like that guy lost the whole load on his trailer".

"Yeah.....Too bad it our P-day". Lol

[Daniel Peterson]

Do you deny that the Church whitewashes its history then?

Yes.

Packer's comments about not teaching "non-faith promoting history"what are we to make of this?

Whatever you would like.

Elder Packer expressed his viewpoint in that 1981 speech, and the Church and its historians have produced a great deal of historical material since he did. Much of it has been absolutely first-rate. (For a listing of that material, see James B. Allen, Ronald J. Walker, and David Whittaker, eds., Studies in Mormon History, 1830-1997: An Indexed Bibliography [urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000], which is being continued on line.) The relatively new Oxford volume on the Massacre at Mountain Meadows is a fine book, for instance, and the Joseph Smith Papers project is shaping up to be a major landmark in Mormon historiography.

Dallin H. Oaks, co-author of the 1979 book Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith and of several articles on Mormon legal history, was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1984, three years after Elder Packer's speech.

What do you make of the BY sunday school manual that depicts BY as a monogamist

I'm unaware of that manual.

All of the Sunday School manuals dealing with Church history of which I'm aware all speak quite openly about plural marriage.

if nothing else I find it insulting to BY himself and all that he preached whether it is doctrinal today or not.

I absolutely agree. If there's a Church manual out there claiming that Brigham Young was a monogamist, I think that's an outrage. Please let me know where I can find it, and I'll write a letter of protest to Salt Lake City.

[HMX-1]

No, I didn't bring up the subject, and I'm not interested in starting an entire thread about it. Someone else brought it up as part of the reason they lost faith, and believers jumped in with challenges and questions. I didn't know there was some unwritten rule that if people responded to those questions and challenges, they'd be accused of derailing the thread.

beastie, can't you just feel the deep Christlike demeanor on this blog site??? Ya just gotta love it. I'm just glad your not an investigator using this format as a loading dose...

[Billy]

Have you ever read what their "Marriage" to Joseph consisted of?

Joseph and Emma would stop by their house once a week to pick up his starched shirts and to drop off the dirty shirts from the previous week. Not much of a marriage. if you ask me.

This sounds ever more strange than having more than one wife. How do you explain this to your non member friends. Joseph married many women, but he never slept with them, rather he just helped them with their laundry.

[Ray Agostini]

FYI,

I think LOAP was just throughing that out there for anybody, I dont think he was responding to any specific poster. I could be wrong.

I'm sure he wasn't responding to any specific poster. You just imagined that I posted the question that brought the reply.

[Honorentheos]

Wow. When I was a missionary back in the dark ages, we were only allowed to read the scriptures and a couple of other books: Miracle of Forgiveness, Jesus The Christ, and later Drawing on the Power of Heaven.

It was the same for us in the mid-90's. We had a set of books that you could pick up at Desert Book that included Jesus the Christ, the Articles of Faith, a Marvelous Work and a Wonder, and Gospel Principles that were allowed. Our mission president added to the list in a very limited manner, including James Allen's As a Man Thinketh and a couple of books on temples as our focus was on bringing families to the temple and not just baptism. Having anything like Mormon Enigma on the shelf would have earned a missionary the "schwartz" label very quickly in our mission. In fact, I had a member give me a book by Elder Oaks in english and my then- companion made it pretty clear he wasn't happy about it.

[Jeff K.]

Which books or sources in the 1970s revealed that Joseph Smith had 33 wives? Which books revealed, in the 1970s, that many of those wives were already married to other men?

Mostly news articles/pamphletts and books regarding the more sensationalistic aspects of Joseph Smith's wives. Polygamy was well known in general. I am sure if I peruse some titles I would recognize a few from that time 30 years ago.

So what is your point? That you don't believe such things were available?

If I might

REVIVAL OF OLD THEORIES AND ALLEGATIONS (1946-1990). Anti-Mormon writers were most prolific during the post-Brodie era. Despite a generally favorable press toward the Church during many of these years, of all anti-Mormon books, novels, pamphlets, tracts, and flyers published in English before 1990, more than half were published between 1960 and 1990 and a third of them between 1970 and 1990.

Anti Mormon Publications

[Tarski]

Like angles and angels...from a math prof.

Ya, exactly because I am a math prof. My fingers just want to type "angle" like they want to form an A bar chord on the guitar.

You can count on me doing that many more times. LOL

Perhaps if I keep posting here long enough I will eventually have the reverse problem and end up taking the cosine of an "angel" in class. LOL

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I'm sure he wasn't responding to any specific poster. You just imagined that I posted the question that brought the reply.

And I imagined that I typed something to you too, on my imaginary key board.

Ok.......????..?

[Daniel Peterson]

Did Hinckley ever made such a statement on this subject to the national media when he did not dissemble or as you prefer to think of "flub" a little bit, but instead state plainly that God was once a Man and men may become gods just like Him is in fact a doctrine of the Church that is regularly, though not frequently, taught in Gospel Doctrine class and in High School and College religion courses, but that the particular details about God's life as a man are not presently known or revealed?

I think it's pretty clear that he didn't want to talk about this subject with a skeptical reporter for a skeptical audience.

I can't say that I really blame him.

Would I have handled it a bit differently? Yes. Was he a bit awkward on the two occasions that are typically cited to try to score a point against him? Yes. Do I think he was lying? Not at all.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Ya, exactly because I am a math prof. My fingers just want to type "angle" like they want to form an A bar chord on the guitar.

You can count on me doing that many more times. LOL

Perhaps if I keep posting here long enough I will eventually have the reverse problem and end up taking the cosine of an "angel" in class. LOL

That might be part of my problem tonight, I have an electric guitar in my hands right now. Oh boy. Working on my arpeggios. My hands hurt.

[HMX-1]

I know a very large number of good people in the Church -- certainly much better than I am -- and I don't feel very comfortable with sweeping negative judgments of the Church membership.

Sorry Danny boy, I'm sure I wasn't including everyone in there... Perhaps you should become more active in your ward... and I'm sure I didn't say their were bad people in the church, I believe I said that a large majority of members feel they are better than others whom do not share our beliefs simply because they don't. Instead of setting an example of humbleness and Christlike mannerisms, they tend to be condescending and prideful.. If you don't believe me check out some of TTribes stuff. I would swear this guy is a lawyer. You can smell them a mile away.. Keep up the example, isn't it wonderful when people you don't know walk up and ask; "are you LDS?" it happens all the time and I don't even wear BYU shirts.. Good luck!

[Ray Agostini]

Mostly news articles/pamphletts and books regarding the more sensationalistic aspects of Joseph Smith's wives. Polygamy was well known in general. I am sure if I peruse some titles I would recognize a few from that time 30 years ago.

So what is your point? That you don't believe such things were available?

If I might

Anti Mormon Publications

None of those anti-Mormon writers had access to the Church Archives, as writers like Compton did. So I repeat, while it may have been generally known that "Mormons practiced polygamy", and speculations, for example, of Brigham Young's wives ranged from 20 to 50, none were specifically studied with primary sources. Virtually nothing was known about Joseph Smith's plural wives, because he practiced it in secrecy, and this only came to light through the study of the Church Archives. So how would a convert in the 1970s know anything about this?

Once again:

Compton began his serious work in Mormon history as a Visiting Fellow at the Huntington Library studying the journals of Eliza R. Snow.[4] He found that his Classics background helped his Mormon history work by teaching him respect for these primary documents.[1] While researching, and trying to note people identified in Snow's journals, Compton found that he needed a good list of Joseph Smith's plural wives. Not finding one, he began researching his own list, which eventually grew into his 1997 book, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith.[4]

And I ask again, have you read any of the books I listed?

[Daniel Peterson]

Sorry Danny boy, I'm sure I wasn't including everyone in there... Perhaps you should become more active in your ward... and I'm sure I didn't say their were bad people in the church, I believe I said that a large majority of members feel they are better than others whom do not share our beliefs simply because they don't. Instead of setting an example of humbleness and Christlike mannerisms, they tend to be condescending and prideful.. If you don't believe me check out some of TTribes stuff. I would swear this guy is a lawyer. You can smell them a mile away.. Keep up the example, isn't it wonderful when people you don't know walk up and ask; "are you LDS?" it happens all the time and I don't even wear BYU shirts.. Good luck!

Good grief. For somebody who's been publicly bewailing the tone here, why the condescension?

"Danny boy"? (Where did that come from?)

"Perhaps you should become more active in your ward"? (I'm the bishop. It would be very, very difficult to be more active than I am.)

And, if I were you, I'd be a little less free with the charge that others are arrogant and judgmental:

"a large majority of members feel they are better than others"

"Instead of setting an example of humbleness and Christlike mannerisms, they tend to be condescending and prideful."

On lawyers: "You can smell them a mile away."

[Jeff K.]

You overestimate what non mormons understand about your beliefs. You live in Orange County, go to South Coast Plaza and stop 25 people and ask them if they know that the LDS God was once a man on another planet. Report back your findings, I would be interested.

Just look back during the campaign trail when Mike Huckabee mentioned that the Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers, if everybody already knew this then why was there such a stir?

I was a non member in Southwest VA and the only member in my family. I belonged to a small branch in what can conservatively be called a powerful baptist region in the US were even our small branch of Mormons received more than its share of challenges from local religious leaders which included follownig the missionaries around and talking to the homes they spoke in. Just a country boy far from Orange county.

As a former ward mission leader I have done exactly what you have stated and more. Before and after Prop 8. Opinions whether informed or not were very marked and clear. So I cannot believe, either from my stance as a young convert or today how anyone can be ignorant of the many questions raised regarding the church.

[Zakuska]

Dr. Petersen is a Bishop. How more Active do you want him to be?

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

You can smell them a mile away.. Keep up the example, isn't it wonderful when people you don't know walk up and ask; "are you LDS?" it happens all the time and I don't even wear BYU shirts.. Good luck!

You know, when I worked at Guitar Center this was the number 1 question I was asked.

Turth?

In the 5 years I worked there I was never once asked this question. I have no idea what you are talking about here?

[ttribe]

Sorry Danny boy, I'm sure I wasn't including everyone in there... Perhaps you should become more active in your ward...

He's the Bishop of his ward.

...and I'm sure I didn't say their were bad people in the church, I believe I said that a large majority of members feel they are better than others whom do not share our beliefs simply because they don't. Instead of setting an example of humbleness and Christlike mannerisms, they tend to be condescending and prideful.. If you don't believe me check out some of TTribes stuff.

What did I do?!

Did you happen to read this post of mine in this thread: Post Link

I would swear this guy is a lawyer. You can smell them a mile away..

Not a lawyer...I am an accountant though.

[Honorentheos]

(regarding the question if someone denied that the church whitewashed it's history)Yes.

(regarding the discussion of a lesson manual that possibly displays Brigham Young as a monogomist)

...I'm unaware of that manual.

All of the Sunday School manuals dealing with Church history of which I'm aware all speak quite openly about plural marriage.

I absolutely agree. If there's a Church manual out there claiming that Brigham Young was a monogamist, I think that's an outrage. Please let me know where I can find it, and I'll write a letter of protest to Salt Lake City.

This may be a good case in point. Both in Dr. Peterson's response (not to suggest he should know which manual was being described, but if such as I could figure it out...)

Teachings of Brigham Young

Is there anything patently false in this description of President Young. No. But the two marriages listed, the description of his role as governor of the Utah Territory and Superintendent of Indian Affairs are...well, what they are.

It reminds of the forward to the word of wisdom, being given for the weakest of saints...

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I was a non member in Southwest VA and the only member in my family. I belonged to a small branch in what can conservatively be called a powerful baptist region in the US were even our small branch of Mormons received more than its share of challenges from local religious leaders which included follownig the missionaries around and talking to the homes they spoke in. Just a country boy far from Orange county.

As a former ward mission leader I have done exactly what you have stated and more. Before and after Prop 8. Opinions whether informed or not were very marked and clear. So I cannot believe, either from my stance as a young convert or today how anyone can be ignorant of the many questions raised regarding the church.

Were at in SW Virgina?

I was in Roanoke, Covington, and Lynchburg.

I know exactly what you are talking about. Most of the members were very well versed on the supposed problems of mormonism.

[Honorentheos]

Did you happen to read this post of mine in this thread: [url="http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index.php?

For the record, ttribe, I noticed and greatly respect that you said as much.