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| The Angel Moroni, son of the Nephite prophet Mormon |
¨Missionaries for the Mormon Church have converted millions of people to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by convincing them that the Book of Mormon is true and superior to the Bible.
The Book of Mormon claims to be history of "the period from 600 BC to 421 AD during which the Nephite, Lamanite, and Mulekite civilizations flourished."{1} It is also believed by the Mormon Church that these civilizations were descendants of Lehi, a Jew who led a colony of people from Jerusalem to the Americas in 600 BC.
The Nephite prophet Mormon and his son Moroni played major roles in bringing the lost story of these civilizations to light. War broke out among the descendants of Lehi, and as they were about to annihilate one another, Mormon wrote their history on golden plates and hid them in the hill Cumorah in New York state.
According to Bruce R. McConkie, a Mormon scholar, the Book of Mormon has three purposes:
To bear record of Christ and clarify his Divine Sonship and mission, proving that he is the Redeemer and Savior;
To teach the doctrines of the gospel in such a perfect way that the plan of salvation will be clearly revealed;
To stand as a witness that Joseph Smith was the Lord's anointed through whom the latter-day work of restoration would be accomplished.{2} (According to the Mormon Church, Christianity was corrupted after the death of the last apostle and Joseph Smith was anointed by God to restore the true church.)
Referring to the Book of Mormon, the Mormon apostle Orson Pratt, said: "This book must be either true or false. If true, it is one of the most important messages ever sent from God.... If false, it is one of the most cunning, wicked...impositions ever palmed upon the world, calculated to deceive and ruin millions."{3}
It is imperative that we recognize the Book of Mormon for what it is and challenge those who continue to perpetuate the false idea that it is true. In order for the Book of Mormon to be accepted as divine truth, the Bible must be discredited.
The book of 2 Nephi in the Book of Mormon says: "Because that ye have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all my words."{4} Joseph Smith said, "I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book."{5}
The underlying problem with the Book of Mormon is that there is absolutely no objective, external evidence for much of the information found in the book. And the information that is trustworthy was plagiarized right out of the King James Bible. Beyond the fact that the Book of Mormon cannot be verified externally, the potential convert is told that the Smithsonian Institution uses the Book of Mormon to aid its archaeological work. However, in a letter referring to this Mormon claim, the Smithsonian Institution Department of Anthropology states: "The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a scientific guide. Smithsonian archaeologists see no connection between the archeology of the New World and the subject matter of the Book."{6} there is much, much more, HERE (emphasis added)
· Thanks to Russ Wise
· Thanks to Mormon Beliefs about Prophecy, Heaven, and Celestial Marriage
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3 comments:
All of the Mormon scripture, lesson manuals, magazines, etc. can be found on their main internal website, http://lds.org. Their other site http://mormon.org is a proselytizing site. The manual that the missionaries use doesn't appear to make any claim about the Smithsonian.
Thank you for posting this. It's informative and not polemical, which is a helpful stance.
Every time I think about Mormonism I feel torn. I remember the great Iroquois chief Tecumseh's advice, "Trouble no one about his religion," which is a call for tolerance and respect.
On the other hand I'm probably more respectful of religions that are plainly unchristian than I am of Mormonism, which seems to me a fraud and an invention claiming to be somehow related to Christianity.
Then there's Mitt Romney. For a thousand reasons I don't support him, but I try not to let one of those reasons be that he's a Mormon. I don't think there should be any religious test for public office. I had no problem voting for Joe Lieberman, who's Jewish, for vice-president in 2000. I hope and believe I could vote for a Muslim or an atheist if I agreed with their positions on issues. Mormons, however, present special difficulties. Not only are they anti-Gay by their wacko theology, they aspire to be gods living on planets with all their descendants, which is their theological "justification" for marrying all the wives they can afford.
It's just such a crazy religion that I have a hard time with it. Then add on their secrecy and their underlying commercial purpose and I simply don't trust them.
Then I remember my Mormon friend Bill from high school, who was a very nice guy.
I admire certain aspects of Mormonism, including their emphasis on family and maintaining a kind of personal purity in the face of so much worldly corruption - at the same time I know that they participate in corruption of their own. Racism was built into their religion until the 1970's; huh?
Whatever else can be said, it isn't a form of Christianity I can recognize. At times it even looks like a lying, thieving cult.
I suppose the bottom line is I'd vote for Harry Reid if I lived in Nevada; I might well vote for my friend Bill.
But Mormons as such, and Romney in particular, no way. Joseph Smith was a con artist. No lost tribe of Israel washed up on these shores.
I actually have some very loved ones who are Mormons (family on one side). What I see is that they are very insulated and downright hostile about ¨discussing¨ some of their more ¨creative¨ dogma...they don´t allow it, a screen comes down,it´s opaque and woven of steel will...I think it´s easy for them to become distracted into brainwashed with all their ¨good works¨...it´s quite believable on the surface, at least for a person like me, to believe I must be getting GOOD (afterall, look what I´ve done, do and look at how many people esteem me, including me) as I go down my checklist of puritanical niceities...of course, GOOD character, in my case and that of others, is EASY to portray...unfortunately, it ain´t so EASY to actually ¨be¨...no, good character portrayed is often distanced from the reality inside of me (and others, I´ve noticed, and I´ve noticed). Let´s portray good character -- like Romney we know what good character ¨ought¨ represent, so, let´s represent some!!!
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