"Apostasy in Armenia - Sole LDS Stake in Armenia Discontinued"

[Atheist Mormon]

Just now, The Nehor said:

It changed knowledge but it did not require repentance, fasting, living a strict moral code, or anything of that nature. Ideological shifts are easy by comparison.

If you are trying to suggest that the wealthy and those who have worldly satisfaction and security are more likely to accept the gospel then history disrespectfully disagrees.

Look Nehor, I don't mean any disrespect but "repentance, fasting, living a strict moral code" does not put any food in anybody's mouth....

And yes I do unashamedly say "worldly satisfaction", "happiness" is alot easier and beneficial to live by rather than accepting the burden of "Gospel".; Ask yourself where would the majority of human population live? In Las Vegas, Cayman Islands, Hawaii or in Zion (Not Zion NP of course)? For me; I'd take Moab, UT for everyday life but I'd definitely swing by Vegas once or twice a month.

[The Nehor]

1 minute ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Look Nehor, I don't mean any disrespect but "repentance, fasting, living a strict moral code" does not put any food in anybody's mouth....

And yes I do unashamedly say "worldly satisfaction", "happiness" is alot easier and beneficial to live by rather than accepting the burden of "Gospel".; Ask yourself where would the majority of human population live? In Las Vegas, Cayman Islands, Hawaii or in Zion (Not Zion NP of course)? For me; I'd take Moab, UT for everyday life but I'd definitely swing by Vegas once or twice a month.

And if you want to live by bread alone go nuts. Sloths and mosquitos have solved the economic question of how to eat enough to live. I like to think humanity has moved beyond that level.

A lot of people live in China. I am not sure what you are trying to say.

[Atheist Mormon]

Just now, The Nehor said:

And if you want to live by bread alone go nuts. Sloths and mosquitos have solved the economic question of how to eat enough to live. I like to think humanity has moved beyond that level.

A lot of people live in China. I am not sure what you are trying to say.

Of course not, but the food/water was the first element humans to secure in order to survive, I don't know for sure how we invented the supernatural, which was detrimental to human survival for sure.

[theplains]

On 11/05/2016 at 9:54 PM, USU78 said:

You can honestly assert that European converts never heard of Mormon polygyny? Really? 

I was thinking more along the lines of new converts in Asia.

Jim

[The Nehor]

7 minutes ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Of course not, but the food/water was the first element humans to secure in order to survive, I don't know for sure how we invented the supernatural, which was detrimental to human survival for sure.

Detrimental? Or neutral except in the sense that it takes up time which could be used for "surviving"?

Either way I do not accept your bold "for sure" assertion.

[Atheist Mormon]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Detrimental? Or neutral except in the sense that it takes up time which could be used for "surviving"?

Either way I do not accept your bold "for sure" assertion.

Okay Nehor, you do the math; how many people on earth goth slaughtered for the sake of religion? The only positive outcome of the warfare was that it helped to stem human exponential growth a fraction. VS consider Non_Belief, which would not persecute homosexuals, implement liberal moral standards...The Planet would be a better place, just imagine a world without a Catholic Empire.....This is why I love Joseph; He nailed Catholicism as evil, I never forgot that was one of His greatness....

[The Nehor]

1 minute ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Okay Nehor, you do the math; how many people on earth goth slaughtered for the sake of religion? The only positive outcome of the warfare was that it helped to stem human exponential growth a fraction. VS consider Non_Belief, which would not persecute homosexuals, implement liberal moral standards...The Planet would be a better place, just imagine a world without a Catholic Empire.....This is why I love Joseph; He nailed Catholicism as evil, I never forgot that was one of His greatness....

Yes, atheist shave an unblemished history of implementing liberal moral standards when they get into power.

Stalin, who was quite determined in his atheism created a bastion of liberal thought.

Pol Pot.....great guy.

Chairman Mao Tse Tung ushered in the most liberal democracy the world has ever seen. Homosexuals certainly did not need to fear the law in 1960s China.

Cute, but atheism is old and there is no evidence it uniformly leads to your magical faerie utopia.

 

[Mystery Meat]

4 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Yes, atheist shave an unblemished history of implementing liberal moral standards when they get into power.

Stalin, who was quite determined in his atheism created a bastion of liberal thought.

Pol Pot.....great guy.

Chairman Mao Tse Tung ushered in the most liberal democracy the world has ever seen. Homosexuals certainly did not need to fear the law in 1960s China.

Cute, but atheism is old and there is no evidence it uniformly leads to your magical faerie utopia.

 

OWNED.

[Atheist Mormon]

6 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Stalin, who was quite determined in his atheism created a bastion of liberal thought.

Pol Pot.....great guy.

Chairman Mao Tse Tung ushered in the most liberal democracy the world has ever seen. Homosexuals certainly did not need to fear the law in 1960s China.

Okay Nehor I found an exact answer for your allegations, take a look at this; Again this guy Dawkins is my another Hero.

https://richarddawkins.net/2014/10/the-atheist-atrocities-fallacy-hitler-stalin-pol-pot/

[USU78]

2 hours ago, theplains said:

I was thinking more along the lines of new converts in Asia.

Jim

The evangelicals, who like our ethics, always precede us with their anti-mormon literature, into countries. It is extraordinarily unlikely that a Mormon investigator anywhere in the world would not have encountered the evengelical hate literature

[USU78]

Make that lack our ethics

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Okay Nehor I found an exact answer for your allegations, take a look at this; Again this guy Dawkins is my another Hero.

https://richarddawkins.net/2014/10/the-atheist-atrocities-fallacy-hitler-stalin-pol-pot/

Not really exact. I didn't mention Hitler. He was nominally Christian but he used it only as a propaganda tool and didn't use it very often. Also real Christian don't generally try to bring back pagan gods (even if they are not successful). His real religion was the Aryan race and to a lesser degree himself.

But let's see what Dawkins says about the people I did bring up.

Stalin

On Stalin he rightly points out that Stalin originally trained for the Russian Orthodox Priesthood and then pulls a bit of a jump by arguing that if Stalin was raised in a culture of good atheists " Lucretius, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Einstein" then he would not have had this problem. So the problem is he was an atheist with a bad history. The problem is I or anyone else can do the same thing with religious tyrants and say if they took their religion from the 'right kinds' of religions and religious leaders or even if they hung out with 'good atheists' there would not be a problem. So all this establishes is that both can be bad which I believe completely.

His list of "good atheists" is also a mess. There is no strong evidence that Lucretius was an atheist. He saw that religion could cause great evil but he was also probably a pagan and their gods are not always friendly to humanity. Saying the gods are evil and capricious and their priests are jerks is not saying the gods do not exist. We know almost nothing about Lucretius so he is an odd pick to be sure he is an atheist unless one is 'taking it on faith' in which case the writer may want to go home and rethink his life. Jefferson was a Deist who believed in an afterlife and referred to himself as a Christian, though an odd one with lots of provisos attached. Paine professed belief in a God though he did not like Christianity much at all and denigrated it harshly. Einstein called himself a pantheist after Spinoza's school of thought but also called himself an agnostic. He deliberately said he was not an atheist. So when he lists the "good atheists" either he mean "not orthodox Christians but believe in theism or pantheism" or "I'm a moron incapable of performing a basic Google search". Have you considered finding a more scrupulous hero?

Pol Pot

Pol Pot studied Buddhism and Catholicism as a child. The case for him not being atheist is that he had a Buddhist-like belief in his divine destiny. I don't find that conclusive. That Pol Pot banned religions is a historical fact. That he maintained some superstitions may be but he obviously shared your view that religion had no place in his nation's glorious future. You can make an argument either way on Pol Pot but suggesting he liked and was a friend to religion is insane.

Mao

Nothing on Mao huh?

 

Religion can lead to great evil. I am not denying that in any way but atheist's track record are not spotless. Your ideal that the end of religion and strictly atheist leaders will usher in liberal peace is not based on historical evidence. If you want to believe that a better crop of atheists in the future will do better you can do so. I doubt it though. The idea that religion is the big disease in the human psyche and that a cure will make him a secular saint is hopelessly naive. Atheists war with selfishness, lust for power, jealousy, envy, hatred, anger, the need to control others, gluttony, paranoia, and the like just like everyone else. Some fight their war well. Others do not.

[Atheist Mormon]

Just now, The Nehor said:

 

Religion can lead to great evil. I am not denying that in any way but atheist's track record are not spotless. Your ideal that the end of religion and strictly atheist leaders will usher in liberal peace is not based on historical evidence. If you want to believe that a better crop of atheists in the future will do better you can do so. I doubt it though. The idea that religion is the big disease in the human psyche and that a cure will make him a secular saint is hopelessly naive. Atheists war with selfishness, lust for power, jealousy, envy, hatred, anger, the need to control others, gluttony, paranoia, and the like just like everyone else. Some fight their war well. Others do not.

Nehor.....I don't disagree anything you write......But....

Yourself.....Did you ever wonder.....how could your belief be right, the only one among thousands of denominations....This was the premise I was baptized in 1976, Switzerland...."Lord's Only true Church".

There are 39,999 other Christian denominations who has a piece of Christ...You do not believe in any of them, you are almost an atheist, short of one God. 

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Nehor.....I don't disagree anything you write......But....

Yourself.....Did you ever wonder.....how could your belief be right, the only one among thousands of denominations....This was the premise I was baptized in 1976, Switzerland...."Lord's Only true Church".

There are 39,999 other Christian denominations who has a piece of Christ...You do not believe in any of them, you are almost an atheist, short of one God. 

Because with a thought I can call up the Holy Ghost into my being with his electrifying feeling. Because I have been led for much of my life by God and in some cases cases that leading was direct. Because I have been rebuked and literally knocked to the ground by the power of God's anger with my petulant whining. Because I have felt the stain of my most repugnant and treacherous sins washed clean. I have basked in the love of God which is great and terrible and I have gotten hints of what eternity is like.

My belief in God is not based on reason. I do think my faith is plausible rationally but it cannot be proved except by trying it and that proof is not truly interchangeable. I cannot give it to other people but it is real. I believe but not in the shallow sense that I believe Trump would be a bad president. I am completely convinced based on the preponderance of evidence that is my life that it is all real.

As to your problem with the odds, yeah, it is statistically unlikely that I am right if all have an equal chance of being right but then so does atheism. Something has to be right. My faith has as at least as good a chance as any but that is not why I adhere to it. I found God or, more correctly, He found me. 

[Avatar4321]

4 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Nehor.....I don't disagree anything you write......But....

Yourself.....Did you ever wonder.....how could your belief be right, the only one among thousands of denominations....This was the premise I was baptized in 1976, Switzerland...."Lord's Only true Church".

There are 39,999 other Christian denominations who has a piece of Christ...You do not believe in any of them, you are almost an atheist, short of one God. 

I think it's obvious how he or anyone else can reach that conclusion. They ask God for themselves and listen to what He says.

"if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given unto him."

it never ceases to amaze me that no matter how many faiths I've studied the only one that encourages anyone to ask God is us.

why is that? Why don't other faiths encourage men to go to the source to learn the truth? Why do many of them try to tell us we are wrong for asking God? Why is it so many people with no desire for the church to be true study and ask and get an answer from the Spirit telling them it is?

do you know how many times I've seen men who study the Book of Mormon who want to prove us wrong only for the Holy Spirit to convert them?

I invite you to commit to restudying the Book of Mormon with an open mind and heart. Do it believing that if there is a God, He can reveal Himself to you. You wont regret the decision.

[theplains]

18 hours ago, USU78 said:

The evangelicals, who like our ethics, always precede us with their anti-mormon literature, into countries. It is extraordinarily unlikely that a Mormon investigator anywhere in the world would not have encountered the evengelical hate literature

Many confuse anti-mormon literature with honest attempts to explain something more truthfully 
than LDS depictions.  I don't call Mormons anti-Christs when they come preaching a Jesus that 
is quite different from Evangelical doctrine.  To be honest with you, I don't even find the 
Mormon versions of Jesus and Heavenly Father in the LDS standard works (with the exception of 
one polygamous reference to Heavenly Father in D&C 132).

Thanks,
Jim

[Atheist Mormon]

1 hour ago, Avatar4321 said:

I invite you to commit to restudying the Book of Mormon with an open mind and heart. Do it believing that if there is a God, He can reveal Himself to you. You wont regret the decision.

Avatar, how can you ask me to believe in something you & I know there's no evidence for it? (I'm not talking about BoM alone). With a skeptical mind like mine which knows already there's no Supernatural force that  will alter or influence any person in favor of other.....

[Atheist Mormon]

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

  I do think my faith is plausible rationally but it cannot be proved except by trying it and that proof is not truly interchangeable. I cannot give it to other people but it is real. I believe but not in the shallow sense that I believe Trump would be a bad president. I am completely convinced based on the preponderance of evidence that is my life that it is all real.

Nehor, how can you say this; "My belief in God is not based on reason.". Every decision we make in this life is based on a reason; you wouldn't go out bowling when there's a huge snow storm, I could not run untested, unproven vaccine, flu tests in my clinic, I need some verifiable evidence that they work at least 98%of time, I'm sure you scrutinize some personal/professional decisions over & over before giving go ahead....Then why would you accept something so untested, so unproven in any shape or form week after week? 

I am not criticizing you, I'm just baffled, I came here to understand what drives your faith so solidly, conclusively that you want to pursue relentlessly..My Heck! I gave up lightyears sooner..... 

[Avatar4321]

3 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Avatar, how can you ask me to believe in something you & I know there's no evidence for it? (I'm not talking about BoM alone). With a skeptical mind like mine which knows already there's no Supernatural force that  will alter or influence any person in favor of other.....

no. There is tons of evidence for it. Simply because you don't believe the evidence or find it credible doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

the book of Mormon in and of itself is incredible evidence. It shouldn't exist. But it does. You can hold it. You can study it. You can analyze the message it teaches and test it by applying it. The lives of the twelve witnesses for it are likewise impressive.

so yes I can invite you to study it because you don't seem to have

[PeterPear]

It always amazes me how these discussion threads evolve from the original story.

[PeterPear]

On May 11, 2016 at 3:23 PM, consiglieri said:

Geez, Elder Holland must be working overtime to create double-digit stakes every week with this kind of stuff going on.

You remind me of Debbie Downer.

 

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Nehor, how can you say this; "My belief in God is not based on reason.". Every decision we make in this life is based on a reason; you wouldn't go out bowling when there's a huge snow storm, I could not run untested, unproven vaccine, flu tests in my clinic, I need some verifiable evidence that they work at least 98%of time, I'm sure you scrutinize some personal/professional decisions over & over before giving go ahead....Then why would you accept something so untested, so unproven in any shape or form week after week? 

I am not criticizing you, I'm just baffled, I came here to understand what drives your faith so solidly, conclusively that you want to pursue relentlessly..My Heck! I gave up lightyears sooner..... 

I think people are much less rational then you think. Most people do have reasons for doing what they do but those reasons are often irrational.

My faith is not based on reason in the sense that I scrutinized from afar, weighed all the variables, and made a logical choice. When I was young I saw others enjoying it and wanted it to be true so I began to really try it. Once I did the experiences started coming. I believe it because of the experiences I have had. I chose it the same way I chose a lover and picked a career. It was not solely through picking through pros and cons. Instead I saw what I wanted and waded into the water to try it out. I had some I did not like. The gospel I did. I cannot point to a part of this experiment and show everyone it has to be true but it is because I have been there.

Pretty sure God designed the process this way on purpose. He does not want people to choose Him the way they choose an insurance policy or an electric company. We have to hear about it and, on some level, want it. Then the courting dance begins. We cannot share it other then to point the way. Everyone approaches God in most senses alone. Basically the gospel is not an intelligence test which is a good thing because then we would all be doomed.

[ERMD]

19 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Every decision we make in this life is based on a reason;

This is laughable.

I've been an emergency physician for 20 years.  I see counter arguments to this every day.

[Sleeper Cell]

20 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Nehor, how can you say this; "My belief in God is not based on reason.". Every decision we make in this life is based on a reason; you wouldn't go out bowling when there's a huge snow storm, I could not run untested, unproven vaccine, flu tests in my clinic, I need some verifiable evidence that they work at least 98%of time, I'm sure you scrutinize some personal/professional decisions over & over before giving go ahead....Then why would you accept something so untested, so unproven in any shape or form week after week? 

I am not criticizing you, I'm just baffled, I came here to understand what drives your faith so solidly, conclusively that you want to pursue relentlessly..My Heck! I gave up lightyears sooner.....

A “light year” is not a measure of time; it is a measure of distance.   

[Atheist Mormon]

9 hours ago, ERMD said:

This is laughable.

I've been an emergency physician for 20 years.  I see counter arguments to this every day.

Okay, you are partly right on this one, I shouldn't use the word "every"..... The context of it escapes me entirely but when you realize that decision narrows  down to a nanosecond then our "fight or flight" reason will kick in...what ever you call it, that is "reason"'....