Who Are The Lamanites ?

Here is an excellent PDF detailing a lot of great information about the Church's stand on who the Lamanites are versus the current scientific opinion of the origins of the Native Americans.

It might sound controversial, but you can see how the Church really has said for years the Lamanites were the ancestors of the Native Americans. Even quotes from the Book of Mormon are used. I just don't see how Mormons can spin this in their minds, seriously. For me to believe in the BoM I would need to have a serious case of denial.

http://www.mediafire.com/?eqwjsjf3vxx

Critisism Of Mormonism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mormonism

So I ran across this link today while doing some research. Lots of stuff I've already blogged about is in this article.

Some areas I have not discussed: suppression of dissent, credibility of the witnesses, and failed prophecies.

Paying Money To Get Into Heaven

Would you pay money to get into the highest levels of heaven ? Well, in Mormonism, thats exactly what you are doing. Its strange I never thought of it this way until I actually stopped paying tithing. Let me explain.

I had been a regular tithing payer for several years, and I even scolded my wife whenever she would suggest we reduce our payments. I was a TBM (True Believing Mormon). I had fear that I would lose financial blessings in my life if I didn't pay it. Members would often joke and call tithing "fire insurance" to keep us from being burned on the 2nd coming. Ha ha.

Now that I think about it, all of my motivation for paying tithing was based on fear and not charity. Fear seems to be a common motivator in the Mormon religion as I've come to understand since leaving it.

Let me break it down for you. In order to achieve the highest level of heaven in the Mormon religion, you must have certain ordinances or rituals performed for you. These are called the "saving ordinances." To recap, they are :

1) Baptism (age 8)
2) Confirmation and reception of the Gift of the Holy Ghost
3) Ordination to the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods (for males only)
4) Endowment
5) Marriage and sealing to a spouse
6) Sealing to parents

And here is the problem: you must get a temple recommend to perform 4, 5 and 6. In order to get a temple recommend, you must prove to your local ward leaders (Bishop and Stake President) that you are a "full" tithing payer. This means you cannot get the saving ordinances to reach the highest level of heaven unless you pay the church 10 percent of your GROSS income.

During the middle ages priests of the Church at that time would take payments of money to forgive their members of their sins. If you were rich, you could pay a priest and get a ticket into heaven. This is EXACTLY what the Mormon church is doing. The temple recommend is the ticket. Receiving the saving ordinances should not be based on your monetary contribution to the Church. I can understand the other rules for getting one, obeying the law of chastity and all that other good stuff, but paying money ? Common!

It gets worse, in Utah, Mormon Senator Orrin Hatch passed legislation that allowed members to pay a full tithe even while they were in bankruptcy court.

Mormons are told: "if a destitute family is faced with the decision of paying their tithing or eating, they should pay their tithing." (Lynn Robbins, General Conference, April 2005).

So, it is taught that at all costs, make sure we get our money, and if you don't pay, you're not getting into heaven. This might not be so bad except that the Church never discloses its financial information or where it invests its money and resources. This doesn't stop information from getting out though. Thanks to the internet, we can find out that the Church is in fact investing close to 1 billion dollars on a mall rejuvenation project in downtown Salt Lake City, then not long after they decided to CUT the food budgets of their missionaries from $145 per month to $130. The poor missionaries have a hard enough time as it is ! And they are wasting billions on other things that according to Church doctrine are not as important as missionary work !

In Jan. 2006, from the Church PR department, (Deseret News Publishing Company): Edgley said, “that since 1984, the LDS Church has donated nearly $750 million in cash and goods to people in need in more than 150 countries.” That averages to 37.5 million per year or about $3-$4 per Mormon member went to the poor. The total of $750 million in 22 years spent in cash in goods to people in need is only HALF what the church is spending on these malls. Only Half!! The Mormon church is spending less than 1% of its income to help the poor. Is the Mormon church really a charitable organization?
(credit to Infymus from exmormon.org forums for this data)

And finally, according to the Church you must pay tithing because it is a commandment. I think I would rather buy real fire insurance.

I don't suppose there is a chance of getting my tithing refunded ? Maybe a dividend from profits the Church has made with it ? Oh well.

http://www.mormoncurtain.com/topic_tithing.html

The Word of Wisdom

Some church historians believe that the timing of the Word of Wisdom revelation is interesting in its historical context because at the time there was a great Temperance Movement in America.

Some interesting links:

http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/changech18.htm
http://www.mormoncurtain.com/topic_wordofwisdom.html

Given that we now know there are medical benefits to drinking moderate amounts of coffee and even red wine shouldn't the Church revisit this issue ? Especially in light of the fact that caffeinated sodas or other cold beverages are not specifically prohibited by the Church. Does God really care what temperature my caffeine is ?

http://men.webmd.com/features/coffee-new-health-food
http://www.ynhh.org/online/nutrition/advisor/red_wine.html

I remember when I attended Seminary class in high school (and I graduated, all 4 years) that we were taught that Jesus turned the water into grape juice, not wine. I heard this not from not just one teacher, so it must have been some kind of Church culture based myth or explanation. Why make up stupid crap like this ? The new testament says WINE not GRAPE JUICE ! It was a wedding, and they drank alcohol. Not to mention the fact that alcohol content in wine back then was probably higher. This is just another reason to take anything you learn in Church with a grain of salt. If Jesus could have a little wine, why can't we ?

Journal of Discourses

Interesting things said by early prophets of the Church. Reading these will definitely shake the testimonies of some members. You have been warned.

http://www.journalofdiscourses.org/

My favorite one is where Brigham tells us that Adam, the first man was in fact God Himself.

http://journalofdiscourses.org/Vol_01/refJDvol1-10.html

Midway through this page you can see the "African" racist passage.

http://www.journalofdiscourses.org/Vol_10/refJDvol10-24.html

And down near the bottom here you can read about how blacks will only be able to receive the priesthood after their resurrection.

http://journalofdiscourses.org/Vol_02/refJDvol2-27.html

So basically, in Declaration 2 Spencer Kimball lied when he claimed that past prophets taught that at some time the ban would be lifted and that God, by revelation, had shown him that the day has come. In fact we see this is not the case. The official Church stand up until 1978 has always been what Brigham Young said.

You can see another explanation of this here.

More links :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negro_doctrine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam-God_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_atonement

The Church likes to put a disclaimer on these papers, since some of the content can obviously cause controversy. They want you to think there are errors in the transcribing, and that at the time when these documents were recorded the Church was being heavily persecuted and driven West which somehow excuses some outrageous statements. General Authorities also claim that some of the doctrinal discussions are speculative in nature. But aren't many of these documents from talks given by so called prophets of the Church ?

So is it acceptable to take other revelations from the time as gospel, but not others that just happen to be controversial ? You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can read this Church priesthood manual and see many references to the JoD in it.

http://www.lds.org/gospellibrary/materials/teachBY/Start_Here.pdf

Finally, the apologist view of the racism issue. In his conclusion he says to spin it as best you can and hope people don't dig too deep and find out things like the Journal of Discourses. He actually instructs members to offer the explanation that "We don't know." Once again, just bury your head in the sand and it will go away, right ?

http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2003_LDS_Church_and_the_Race_Issue.html

And finally, a funny one, people living on the Moon and Sun !

http://journalofdiscourses.org/Vol_13/JD13-268.html

That Brigham Young, such a kidder.

Limited Geography Theory

The LGT (Limited Geography Theory) will now become the ILT (Invisible Lamanite Theory).

For those of you who don't know, the LGT is the LDS Church's apologist explanation for the complete lack of any DNA and archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/11/27/native-america-siberia.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_geography_model_(Book_of_Mormon)

(credit to Bear from the postmormon.org forums)

A Member Explains Why Members Leave

I listened to this and thought it was pretty good. I especially love the way he says "none of these are deal breakers" then proceeds to lay out a mountain of evidence that the Church has basically deceived its members. So thats not a "deal breaker" ?

http://mormonstories.org/whytheyleave/

(credit to BishopRic from the postmormon.org forums)