More Misrepresentations Of Mormonism By The Irr

[Zakuska]

So I peeked at just one page and within a paragraph I found so many falsehoods that I had to stop.

"The authenticity and credibility of the Mormon movement rests squarely on the integrity of its founder – Joseph Smith."

Accepting Joseph Smith’s claims would be less difficult had he been a man of impeccable character. He was not.

Good heavens... So lets look at Robs claim does the integrity of a Man say one iota about wether that man is a true prophet?

Something tells me that history is repeating itself...

Matt 11

16 ¶But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,

17 And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.

19 The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.

Here we have the prophet John who had an "impecable character"...

and Jesus who is pictured as Jaba the Hutt, an eater and drinker, a friend of...

-A Publican

-A Tax Collector

-A Documented embezeller

-A Self confessed Repeated Liar

-An Adulturess

-Sinners every one

The people still didn't accept either of them, and I don't think they would today either.

The same thing could go for the Jewish Nation.

Moses killed a man, concealed his body in the sand, then fled the country on fear of being halled in by the Nile Rangers. Then to add insult to injury, the story goes that he came back and tricked Pharoah into borrowing him his Gold then ridding off into the desert with the Police in hot persuit!

And who can ever forget about Abrahams lie to Pharoah, and Isaac following suit?

No folks, the Integrity of any man has nothing what so ever to do with truth claims of a mans religion.

The doctrine is what needs to be tested. See Rob and others are just mad that Jospeh Smith doesn't compare to the Savior. But place the integrety of Joseph Smith up against anyone in the Bible (save the Savior only) and his integrety fares just fine.

Lets take a look at some more:

Instead his story is one of repeated secret sexual affairs with teenage girls and other men’s wives. They acquiesced to their prophet’s advances because Joseph threatened divine punishment if they rejected him. This is not the spiteful charge of critics but the carefully documented findings of Mormon historians.

1) Repeated Sexual affairs with Teenage girls?

What teenage Girls did Joseph Smith supposedly have repeated sexual relations with? Not even Todd Compton the "careful historian" would dare say such a blatant lie.

"The Tanners made great mileage out of Joseph Smith's marriage to his youngest wife, Helen Mar Kimball. However, they failed to mention that I wrote that there is absolutely no evidence that there was any sexuality in the marriage, and I suggest that, following later practice in Utah, there may have been no sexuality. (p. 638) All the evidence points to this marriage as a primarily dynastic marriage.[1] "

1.[note] Todd M. Compton, Response to Tanners, post to LDS Bookshelf mailing list, no date. It should be mentioned that many reviewers of Compton's work do not agree with all of his conclusions, even though he has collected much useful data; see the reviews of In Sacred Loneliness, linked under "Printed material," below.

What are we to conclude when DNA testing that has been completed so far comes back negative for everyone who claimed to have been fathered by JS?

I just have to shake my head!

Edited September 17, 2011 by Zakuska

[mfbukowski]

Precisely my point in the other thread.

I just can't stand even looking at that garbage. He is a paid anti-Mormon and that is it. Period.

[Cobalt-70]

IRR does present some good material of interest to Mormons, however. For example, they have a scanned version of the Book of Commandments, and a table showing what sections correspond to a couple of editions of the D&C. See edited. I refer to that all the time. But other than a few nuggets here and there, the site is just a collection of Evangelicoporn.

Edited September 17, 2011 by Nemesis
Removed link to site with temple content.

[Maidservant]

Why are we doing this kind of thread???? I'm disappointed.

[KevinG]

Why are we doing this kind of thread???? I'm disappointed.

Rob was challenged on other threads that the site he manages is full of misinformation and unflattering falsehoods about the Mormons. His reply was to complain that we were unfairly describing his site. He also claims he corrects things that are incorrect. The site itself cannot be linked because it contains temple content.

I have been tempted to start a thread to discuss some issues at Rob's "research institute" but I am hesitant to drive more traffic his way or run afoul of the spirit of the board rules.

I also lack trust that any information given will be used to accurately represent the Mormons but rather it will be used to refine more anti-Mormon arguments.

It would probably be better to bring up one subject at a time from that site and address them individually instead of a thread about the web site. Just my opinion.

[frankenstein]

Precisely my point in the other thread.

I just can't stand even looking at that garbage. He is a paid anti-Mormon and that is it. Period.

So a person that receives some kind of compensation/renumeration from promoting an agenda can be dismissed out right, nothing need be known except whether or no the person receives any amount of compensation?

Edited September 17, 2011 by frankenstein

[Eldwynn]

What are we to conclude when DNA testing that has been completed so far comes back negative for everyone who claimed to have been fathered by JS?

I just have to shake my head!

Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence. Just because we can't find other descendants of Joseph Smith, it doesn't mean they don't exist. Maybe he used birth control?

Edited September 17, 2011 by Eldwynn

[Stargazer]

So a person that receives some kind of compensation/renumeration from promoting an agenda can be dismissed out right, nothing need be known except whether or no the person receives any amount of compensation?

There are many people who receive compensation for their work, and if their work is honest and does not unjustly harm others then there is nothing wrong with them or their work, per se.

But you know yourself that an otherwise scientific study that came in with a conclusion that just happened to agree with the study's major financiers would garner instant distrust. It wouldn't matter too much whether the conclusion was correct, there would still exist the suspicion that there was a conflict of interest, and that the conclusion was paid for by its sponsors.

If it happens that IRR's research and publications in opposition to the LDS faith earn a living for its principals, meaning that if they changed their minds and decided that the LDS church wasn't the church of the devil after all they would lose their livelihood, then there is a clear conflict of interest, and grounds for distrust of their conclusions.

So it seems to me, anyway.

[Stargazer]

Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence. Just because we can't find other descendants of Joseph Smith, it doesn't mean they don't exist. Maybe he used birth control?

Just because we can't find any clear evidence for the existence of God, doesn't mean that He doesn't exist. Maybe He's deliberately keeping us in the dark?

And again, people may make any number of assumptions about things they have no knowledge of whatsoever, but in the end they are just whistling in the dark.

[Zakuska]

Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence. Just because we can't find other descendants of Joseph Smith, it doesn't mean they don't exist. Maybe he used birth control?

Genuine Frontieer Trojan Sheepskin for sure.

The problem with your scenario is that we have death bed afidavites swearing up and down that they were his prodgenie and come to find out they weren't so what does that tell us?

[Zakuska]

If it happens that IRR's research and publications in opposition to the LDS faith earn a living for its principals, meaning that if they changed their minds and decided that the LDS church wasn't the church of the devil after all they would lose their livelihood, then there is a clear conflict of interest, and grounds for distrust of their conclusions.

So it seems to me, anyway.

Not to mention that after reading Rob's creds on the site he has made a career out of this stuff.

Edited September 17, 2011 by Zakuska

[Rob Bowman]

Stargazer,

You wrote:

If it happens that IRR's research and publications in opposition to the LDS faith earn a living for its principals, meaning that if they changed their minds and decided that the LDS church wasn't the church of the devil after all they would lose their livelihood, then there is a clear conflict of interest, and grounds for distrust of their conclusions.

Would you agree with the following statement?

"If it happens that IRRBYU's research and teachings in opposition todefense of the LDS faith earn a living for its principals, meaning that if they changed their minds and decided that the LDS church wasn't the church of the devil after all they would lose their livelihood, then there is a clear conflict of interest, and grounds for distrust of their conclusions."

[Rob Bowman]

Zakuska,

You wrote:

So I peeked at just one page and within a paragraph I found so many falsehoods that I had to stop.

Yet you allege at most two "falsehoods" in the entirety of your post. Let's look at these.

1. You argue that "the Integrity of any man has nothing what so ever to do with truth claims of a mans religion." Your evidence for this claim is bordering on the silly side:

a. People made false accusations against Jesus Christ. (Um, Zak, they were irrelevant to the claims he made about himself because the accusations were false.)

b. Moses killed a man and escaped into the wilderness. (His call to be a prophet came much later and had no connection to the earlier event.)

c. Abraham lied about Sarah being his sister. (Yep, that was bad. No one claims a prophet has to be sinless. Funny, though, that you mention this, since the Book of Abraham absurdly claims that Abraham's deceit was God's idea.)

You went on to claim, "The doctrine is what needs to be tested." I agree. But one of the doctrines that needs to be tested is that Joseph Smith was the Prophet of the Restoration, the first man in seventeen centuries that was pious enough to ask God for wisdom about choosing a church, the only man in history ever to see God the Father, and a man that was so important that the LDS scriptures claim that Joseph has done more for the salvation of the world than anyone besides Christ. Examining Joseph's life to see if he was a sincere if sinful fellow, or if he was a scoundrel, is quite relevant to testing that doctrine.

You wrote:

See Rob and others are just mad that Jospeh Smith doesn't compare to the Savior. But place the integrety of Joseph Smith up against anyone in the Bible (save the Savior only) and his integrety fares just fine.

Hmm, perhaps you missed what the Bible has to say about such men as Enoch, Joseph (the Genesis patriarch), Joshua, Daniel, Ezra, or women such as Naomi, Elizabeth, Mary the mother of Christ, or Priscilla--just to name a few.

I can understand a true-blue Mormon faithfully defending Joseph Smith's reputation and arguing that he wasn't the worst character in history ever used by God, but when you claim that Joseph Smith compares favorably to everyone in the Bible except Christ you lose all credibility with non-Mormons (and not a few Mormons) familiar with the facts.

2. You object to the statement that Joseph had repeated sexual relations with teenage girls, calling this "a blatant lie." The only plural wife of Joseph Smith that you mention is Helen Mar Kimball. This is hardly enough to justify your conclusion that the article's statement is "a blatant lie." You fail to mention Fanny Alger, Sarah Ann Whitley, Emily Dow Partridge, Lucy Walker, Sarah Lawrence, Maria Lawrence, or Melissa Lott. For each of these seven teenage girls, as I understand it, there is evidence showing a likely or even definite sexual relationship with Joseph Smith.

So much for the "many falsehoods" you claim to have found in this article.

Edited September 17, 2011 by Rob Bowman

[mfbukowski]

So a person that receives some kind of compensation/renumeration from promoting an agenda can be dismissed out right, nothing need be known except whether or no the person receives any amount of compensation?

Now who is it who supposedly said that? All I know is that it wasn't me.

[Stargazer]

Stargazer,

You wrote:

Would you agree with the following statement?

"If it happens that IRRBYU's research and teachings in opposition todefense of the LDS faith earn a living for its principals, meaning that if they changed their minds and decided that the LDS church wasn't the church of the devil after all they would lose their livelihood, then there is a clear conflict of interest, and grounds for distrust of their conclusions."

Sure, why not? Skepticism is not evil; it can even be quite helpful and healthy at times. All of God's children should be skeptics until they've found the truth. Then they should hold fast to it.

I'm just saying that, assuming you earn your living opposing the LDS church, and if I were not a member of that church, and I saw that your daily bread depended upon your opposition to it, I would do well to be skeptical of your conclusions, as there is clearly a potential for a conflict of interest. By the same token, it's clearly in the LDS Church's interest to be seen as the true church of God, and I should be skeptical of their claims as well. This is not rocket science.

When the Apostle Paul said, "Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good." I don't think he was expressing meaningless glittering generalities.

Now, if there were someone in the mix who opposed the LDS church and did not gain a livelihood through that opposition, then there's obvioiusly no conflict of interest, but by the same token, skepticism is still called for.

And btw, I haven't the faintest idea if you earn your living opposing the LDS church, nor do I much care. I prefer to assume that you are in opposition in all good faith, and until I am convinced otherwise that's good enough for me. Now, whether your arguments hold water or are honest, that's another matter, and not one I am interested at this time in taking up. There are others present who are so much more qualified to do so, and I leave it to them.

[zerinus]

In the other thread I gave a lengthy example of IRR’s misrepresentation of Mormonism. Here is another:

1. The Book of Mormon teaches that little children are not capable of sin because they do not have a sinful nature (Moroni 8: . In contrast, the Bible in Psalm 51:5 clearly teaches that we have sinful nature from birth: "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (NIV). (This does not mean that those who die in infancy are lost.)

Wrong! Mormonism teaches that Children are subject to the Fall, and therefore capable of committing sin; but that they are not accountable for their sins, until they reach the age of accountability: “. . . for behold, as in Adam, or by nature, they fall, even so the blood of Christ atoneth for their sins” (Mosiah 3:16)

2. The Book of Mormon teaches that the disobedience of Adam and Eve in eating the forbidden fruit was necessary so that they could have children and bring joy to mankind (2 Nephi 2:23-25). In contrast, the Bible specifically declares that Adam’s transgression was a sinful act of rebellion that unleashed the power of sin and death in the human heart and throughout God’s perfect world (Genesis 3:16-19; Romans 5:12; 8:20-21). There is no Biblical support for the view that Adam and Eve could only fulfill the command to "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28) by disobeying God’s command regarding the forbidden fruit (Genesis 2:17). The Book of Mormon teaching that these divine commands are contradictory, and that God expected Adam and Eve to figure out that in reality He wanted them to break the latter command ("of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it") in order to keep the former ("be fruitful and multiply"), has no basis in logic or the Biblical text, and attributes equivocation to God.

Wrong! “Disobedience” is never “necessary”. Mormonism teaches that God placed the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden because it was His intention that ultimately by partaking of it they might learn to know good and evil. It is a good thing to be able to know good and evil. But presumably it should have been done under His own terms and conditions. There is nothing wrong with knowing good and evil. On the contrary, it is necessary for men to progress to become like God. Otherwise why would God want to put the tree in the garden in the first place? Satan tried to pre-empt the will of God by tempting them to partake of it prematurely, and that is what made it a sin.

3. The Book of Mormon teaches that black skin is a sign of God’s curse, so that white-skinned people are considered morally and spiritually superior to black skinned people (2 Nephi 5:21). In contrast, the Bible teaches that God "made of one blood all nations of men" (Acts 17:26, KJV), that in Christ distinctions of ethnicity, gender and social class are erased (Galatians 3:28), and that God condemns favoritism (James 2:1).

Wrong! The Book of Mormon teaches that the Lamanites were cursed for their wickedness with a dark skin to distinguish them from the Nephites; but it does not say that all dark skin is a sign of a curse; or that it is always a sign of a curse.

4. The Book of Mormon teaches that, "it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23; see also Moroni 10:32). In contrast, the Bible teaches that apart from Christ we are dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1,5) and unable to do anything to merit forgiveness and eternal life. Salvation is wholly of grace (Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 11:6; Titus 3:5-6), not by grace plus works. Good works are a result, not the basis, of a right relationship with God (Ephesians 2:10).

False! The Bible teaches that keeping the commandments of God is the basis of a right relationship with God.

5. According to the Book of Mormon, about 600 years before Christ, a Nephite prophet predicted that "many plain and precious parts" (1 Nephi 13:26-28) would be removed from the Bible. In contrast, from the Bible it is clear that during His earthly ministry, Jesus himself constantly quoted from the Old Testament Scriptures, and showed full confidence in their completeness and accurate transmission as they had survived down to His time. Jesus declared that "heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away" (Mark 13:31; see also Matthew 5:18), and promised His disciples who were to pen the New Testament that the Holy Ghost "shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (John 14:26); Jesus further promised the apostles that they would "bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain" (John 15:16). These promises clearly imply that the fruit of the apostles — the New Testament Scriptures and the Christian church — would endure.

There is a lot of distortion and misrepresentation of biblical teachings there. (1) The fact that Jesus quoted form the OT does not mean that they were flawless. (2) When He said that "heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away" He meant that His promises and prophecies will be fulfilled, not that His words would be preserved intact. (3) John 14:26 has no bearing on the argument. (4) His promise to the disciples that they would "bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain" means that the labor that they performed would be a means of salvation to them; it did not mean that His word could not be corrupted after their demise.

6. According to a Book of Mormon prophecy (Helaman 14:27), at the time of Christ’s crucifixion "darkness should cover the face of the whole earth for the space of three days." In contrast, the New Testament gospel accounts declare repeatedly that there was darkness for only three hours while Jesus was on the cross (Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44).

An earlier prophecy in 1 Nephi 19:10 implies the three days of darkness will be more than regional in scope for it says this sign will be "unto those who inhabit the isles of the sea, more especially given unto those who are of the house of Israel." The darkness then would extend over the ocean to the islands and reach as far as Israel in the Middle East.

That is a total distortion of that verse. Here is the quote: “which he spake concerning the three days of darkness, which should be a sign given of his death unto those who should inhabit the isles of the sea, more especially given unto those who are of the house of Israel. By “the isles of the sea” is meant those places where branches of the house of Israel had been taken in the same way as the people of Lehi had been. It doesn’t mean all the nations of the earth, such as the Gentiles.

Book of Mormon references to the fulfillment of this prophecy, however, use wording that could be understood to mean the three days of darkness was only in the Americas, stating that the three days of darkness would be "over the face of the land." (3 Nephi 8:3ff; 10:9). This appears to be the position of the late Mormon General Authority B. H. Roberts in his book Studies of the Book of Mormon, p. 292). If this is the case, then this would resolve the apparent contradiction between the Bible and the Book of Mormon regarding what happened at the time of Christ's death, for we would have 3 hours of darkness in Israel and 3 days of darkness on the American continents. However, this would make the earlier prophecies of 1 Nephi and Helaman internally contradictory with later BOM references, since their phrasing of "the isles of the sea ... those who are of the house of Israel" and "the whole face of the whole earth" is difficult to understand as merely a localized time of darkness.

See above.

7. The Book of Mormon people are said to have observed "all things according to the law of Moses (2 Nephi 5:10; 25:24). However, although they are supposed to have been Hebrews, they were descendents of the tribe of Joseph (1 Nephi 5:17) or Manasseh (Alma 10:3), not the tribe of Levi and family line of Aaron, as the Law of Moses dictates (Numbers 3:10; Exodus 29:9; Numbers 18:1-7), so they would not have had a legitimate priesthood.

The Book of Mormon people possessed the higher Melchizedek Priesthood, which was not confined to any particular tribe, and which possessed the right to officiate in the lesser offices of the Aaronic or Levitical priesthood.

8. According to the Book of Mormon, there were many high priests serving at the same time (Mosiah 11:11; Alma 13:9-10; 46:6,38; Helaman 3:25) in the New World, among those it describes as Jewish immigrants from ancient Israel who "kept the law of Moses" (e.g., 2 Nephi 25:10; Jacob 4:5; Jarom 1:5). In contrast, it is clear from the Bible that only one individual at a time occupied the office of high priest under the Old Testament dispensation (see, for example Leviticus 21:10; Matthew 26:3; Hebrews 8:6-7). (The mention in Luke 3:2 of "Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests" is not a real exception -- in Christ’s time Israel was under the domination of the Romans, who intervened to change the high priest at will. That is, this office became a kind of "political football," rather than following the appointment process dictated in the Law of Moses. See John 18:13, which describes Annas as "father-in-law to Caiaphas, which was the high priest that same year.")

Again, that refers to the Melchizedek, not Aaronic priesthood.

9. The people described in the Book of Mormon operated multiple temples (Alma 16:13; 23:2; 26:29). This violates the dictates of the Old Testament Scriptures on two counts: First, God commanded Israel to build only one temple to reflect that fact that there is only one true God (Deuteronomy 12:5,13-14; 16:5-6). Second, the one legitimate temple was to be built in Jerusalem (Zion), the location designated by God (The Old Testament is filled with explicit references to God choosing Jerusalem [Zion] as the place where "His name would dwell" in the temple: for example, 1 Kings 8:44,48; 11:13,32,36; 14:21; 2 Kings 21:7; 23:27; 1 Chronicles 28:4; 2 Chronicles 6:6; 7:12,16; Psalm 78:68-69; Isaiah 18:7.

There is nothing in the OT that mandates that there should be a temple only at Jerusalem, and nowhere else. Those injunctions were meant to guard against the Israelites sacrificing to idolatrous gods rather than to Jehovah.

10. The most common biblical terms used to describe the Old Testament priesthood, temple and appointed feasts, are entirely missing from the Book of Mormon. Here are 10 examples of such biblical terms with their frequencies, that never appear once in the Book of Mormon:

• "laver" (13 times in Bible)

• "incense" (121 times in Bible)

• "ark of the covenant" (48 times in Bible)

• "sons of Aaron" (97 times in Bible)

• "mercy seat" (23 in Bible)

• "day of atonement" (21 times in Bible)

• "feast of tabernacles" (17 times in Bible)

• "passover" (59 times in Bible)

• "house of the LORD" (627 in Bible)

• "Aaron" – this name appears 48 times in the Book of Mormon, but never in reference to the biblical Aaron or the Aaronic priesthood

The Book of Mormon is an abridgement of the records of the Nephites, and by its own admission does not contain “one hundredth part” of the history of the Nephites. Mormon would not have regarded those details of sufficient importance to be included in his abridgement.

Edited September 17, 2011 by zerinus

[Deborah]

But don't you know they know more about what we believe than we do? Which is kind of funny when you consider how many years we spend learning in Primary, SS, Seminary and Institute classes.

[Hestia]

I have merged these two topics as they are on the same subject.

[Rob Bowman]

zerinus,

As I said in the other thread (see here), I'm not going to respond point by point to your post here, for three reasons. (1) The article in question is twelve years old and is in the process of being revised. (2) Your criticisms for the most part do not have to do with "misrepresentations," true or imagined, but with differences between LDS and evangelical beliefs. In some cases your objections pertain to long-standing arguments over the actual teaching of the LDS Church (e.g., whether it teaches that God was once a man) and I don't see the value in rehashing such arguments here. (3) If you're serious about wanting to show that I, the person who is involved in this forum, is misrepresenting Mormon beliefs, you should tackle articles that I have written, most notably the Gospel Principles Scripture Study Guide. Up to now, everyone who has wanted to find fault with IRR's website has focused on its oldest articles, written long before I joined the staff at IRR. No one seems at all interested in talking about the many articles (in the hundreds of pages) that I have written!

In addition to these three observations, I do have a concern here. I was and am open to Mormons in this forum pointing me to statements on IRR's website that they think are erroneous. However, if we're going to have extended discussions about whole articles on IRR's website, there is a concern about whether this violates the spirit of the moderators' decision not to allow links to that site. If you support that decision, then to be consistent it seems that you should simply ignore the website and not quote large portions of it in an attempt (vain, so far) to demonstrate that the website deliberately misrepresents LDS beliefs.

Edited September 17, 2011 by Rob Bowman

[orion88]

1. Wrong! Mormonism teaches that Children are subject to the Fall, and therefore capable of committing sin; but that they are not accountable for their sins, until they reach the age of accountability: “.

2. Wrong! “Disobedience” is never “necessary”. Mormonism teaches that God placed the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden because it was His intention that ultimately by partaking of it they might learn to know good and evil. It is a good thing to be able to know good and evil. But presumably it should have been done under His own terms and conditions. There is nothing wrong with knowing good and evil. On the contrary, it is necessary for men to progress to become like God. Otherwise why would God want to put the tree in the garden in the first place? Satan tried to pre-empt the will of God by tempting them to partake of it prematurely, and that is what made it a sin.

3. Wrong! The Book of Mormon teaches that the Lamanites were cursed for their wickedness with a dark skin to distinguish them from the Nephites; but it does not say that all dark skin is a sign of a curse; or that it is always a sign of a curse.

4. The Book of Mormon people possessed the higher Melchizedek Priesthood, which was not confined to any particular tribe, and which possessed the right to officiate in the lesser offices of the Aaronic or Levitical priesthood.

1. Do children have different ages of accountability based on their differing levels

of maturity and intelligence?

2. The March 2008 edition of Ensign calls Adam and Eve's transgression a sin:

"His ransom for Adam’s original transgression so that no member of the human

family is held responsible for that sin ... while all members of the human family

are freely given a reprieve from Adam’s sin through no effort of their own, they

are not given a reprieve from their own sins unless they pledge faith in Christ ...

and press forward in faithful endurance the remainder of life’s journey" (The

Atonement of Christ, p. 35, subheading "The Gifts of Christ’s Atonement")

http://lds.org/ldsor...a____&hideNav=1

How would Adam and Eve have eaten from the forbidden tree under God's

own terms and conditions and still comply with His commandment?

3. Were there any black-skinned Lamanites that did not have the curse?

I think this curse of the black skin started very early in the Book of Mormon.

In Alma 3:6-7, it is recorded that the skins of the Lamanites were dark, "according

to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them

because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who

consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.

And their brethren sought to destroy them, therefore they were cursed; and the

Lord God set a mark upon them, yea, upon Laman and Lemuel, and also the

sons of Ishmael, and Ishmaelitish women".

4. In the Book of Mormon, is the Aaronic priesthood confined to a specific

tribe?

Thank you,

Tony

[frankenstein]

Precisely my point in the other thread.

I just can't stand even looking at that garbage. He is a paid anti-Mormon and that is it. Period.

So a person that receives some kind of compensation/renumeration from promoting an agenda can be dismissed out right, nothing need be known except whether or no the person receives any amount of compensation?

Now who is it who supposedly said that? All I know is that it wasn't me.

I welcome a clarification on your position.

Edited September 17, 2011 by frankenstein

[Questing Beast]

Genuine Frontieer Trojan Sheepskin for sure.

The problem with your scenario is that we have death bed afidavites swearing up and down that they were his prodgenie and come to find out they weren't so what does that tell us?

It tells us that they were mistaken about JS being their father; but not mistaken about him having sex with their mothers....

[zerinus]

zerinus,

As I said in the other thread (see here), I'm not going to respond point by point to your post here, . . .

Yes, very convenient.

. . . for three reasons. (1) The article in question is twelve years old and is in the process of being revised. (2) Your criticisms for the most part do not have to do with "misrepresentations," true or imagined, but with differences between LDS and evangelical beliefs. In some cases your objections pertain to long-standing arguments over the actual teaching of the LDS Church (e.g., whether it teaches that God was once a man) and I don't see the value in rehashing such arguments here. (3) If you're serious about wanting to show that I, the person who is involved in this forum, is misrepresenting Mormon beliefs, you should tackle articles that I have written, most notably the Gospel Principles Scripture Study Guide. Up to now, everyone who has wanted to find fault with IRR's website has focused on its oldest articles, written long before I joined the staff at IRR. No one seems at all interested in talking about the many articles (in the hundreds of pages) that I have written!

You challenged other LDS to show you misrepresentations of Mormonism on IRR, and I gave you some.

In addition to these three observations, I do have a concern here. I was and am open to Mormons in this forum pointing me to statements on IRR's website that they think are erroneous. However, if we're going to have extended discussions about whole articles on IRR's website, there is a concern about whether this violates the spirit of the moderators' decision not to allow links to that site. If you support that decision, then to be consistent it seems that you should simply ignore the website and not quote large portions of it in an attempt (vain, so far) to demonstrate that the website deliberately misrepresents LDS beliefs.

Don't try to bring excuses. The rule pertains to linking to the site. You challenged LDS to find misrepresentation of Mormonism on the site, and I gave you some. There is no violation of the rules for quoting from the site for that purpose.

[thesometimesaint]

dup

Edited September 17, 2011 by thesometimesaint

[thesometimesaint]

We are here to see if we will do whatsoever our Lord and God will command us.