Dude...He KNOWS the church is true. He's felt the burning in his bosom. He's been indoctrinated against independent thought.

He's drunk the plain water (aka koolaid) and eaten the wonder bread. He's unshakable.

He has no concept of what he doesn't know.

__________________
Catz Meow
Badly behaved.
Hedonistic Lemming.

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JW Frogen, my new favorite noob poster:

If you are such a weak jellyfish you can be bullied on a forum where you can ignore any poster you do not want to read than I suggest you move to Tibet, convert to Buddhism, protest the Chinese occupation, be killed as you will by the Chinese and hope you come back with some form of backbone.

It is not too often that I eat my words but if ever there was an occassion it is now. I have researched and found that some changes were made on account of human error during printing and grammatical errors that rose from interpreting the language.

I am sorry if I mislead someone and I promise to be more careful about what I say in the future.

You didn't know that the plates were written in a mixture of Hebrew and Egyptian heiroglyphs. It says it right in the book of mormon to allow many ideas and phrases to be said in a small space.

People are allowed to disagree all they want but when someone is out there spreading lies and preaching falsley about the mormons they are anti mormon. I do accept dissagreement and I am sorry if it seems like I am narrow minded but yesterday I had major family troubles and many stresses so I was not thinking when I wrote so please forgive me if I have offended anyone.

(You disagree with me all the time but I do not consider you Anti-Mormon.)

Thinking is the Basis of the mormon faith. How many talks have you listened to by the Prophets? I can guarentee not one of them says allow me to do your thinking or don't ask questions. No in fact I believe you will find the exact opposite to be true.

The Prophets encourage us to ask questions about our faith and about our life.

From what I hear Joseph withdrew his name from the bank long before he ever left IL because he knew what the people were doing and they didn't head his warnings. A captain may take the blame but if you look at it it was the crew who did the damage.

I do know that the church is true and I have recieved a witness of the truth concerning the church. I am unshakeable and I will not be moved I may not understand all the church principles but I know that in time I will and I will recieve the blessings for keeping the faith in the fires of adversity.

*buzz*

Wrong.

The book of Mormon was translated by Joseph Smith from "reformed Egyptian." Can you give me one other example of a work written in "reformed Egyptian"? Also, where are the originals in "reformed Egyptian" so they can be compared to current scholarship in Egyptian hieroglyphics?

Research, research, research.

You will find, grasshopper, that I rarely make a claim in a religion thread that I don't know is factual. So, for instance, when i tell you that there have been thousands of changes to the BOM as it currently exists, I'm speaking facts. You can try to spin them as you wish, but that isn't going to work on me. I know your faith from the inside. I've lived it.

Tell me, why do you think "white and delightsome" was changed to "pure and delightsome" in 1981? Was it a grammatical error? Translation error? Did Ezra T. get a nudge from Heavenly Father that Joseph Smith had misread or misinterpreted the most correctly translated work on earth?

You tell me.

Or, was it because by 1981, the LDS Church realized that their racial views were going to cripple their conversion rate amongst non-whites?

__________________
Catz Meow
Badly behaved.
Hedonistic Lemming.

************************************************** ***
JW Frogen, my new favorite noob poster:

If you are such a weak jellyfish you can be bullied on a forum where you can ignore any poster you do not want to read than I suggest you move to Tibet, convert to Buddhism, protest the Chinese occupation, be killed as you will by the Chinese and hope you come back with some form of backbone.

I know that you believe this. I've listened to, and read, many talks by the prophets and General Authorities. In fact, I used to work quite closely with the LDS Church professionally when I lived in Salt Lake.

The problem with the faithful is that there are certain realms of questioning that you can never pursue because you will end up "losing your faith" and becoming apostate. The spiritual dangers of that are reinforced to you from your earliest years.

Thus, you can only emotionally think about topics that are safe. You will not understand this until you are at a different point in your life, or perhaps, never. Because of the ramifications of potentially losing your faith, both spiritual and social, your emotions will shut down your brain every time you get too close to a "danger zone."

This is also reinforced every time you go to Fast & Testimony meeting, where believers repeat, over and over, the same standard phrases. When pushed, your faith will topple over into parroting exactly what you've heard one of your spiritual leaders saying.

This is what happened to us, EXACTLY, when we started talking about errors/changes in the Book of Mormon. It is extremely difficult for any true believer, of any faith, to think rationally about their religious views. In most cases, it is impossible, their emotions will trump their brain every single time.

Deconverting from any faith is a horrific, painful process. Most people prefer to be sheep.

__________________
Catz Meow
Badly behaved.
Hedonistic Lemming.

************************************************** ***
JW Frogen, my new favorite noob poster:

If you are such a weak jellyfish you can be bullied on a forum where you can ignore any poster you do not want to read than I suggest you move to Tibet, convert to Buddhism, protest the Chinese occupation, be killed as you will by the Chinese and hope you come back with some form of backbone.

Emotional brain shut down...

Example:

What are you doing here? You aren't thinking rationally. You are parroting an emotional response. This is where your brain goes when you try to logically examine your faith.

I'm not saying this to be critical, I'm saying it because I empathize. I've totally been there.

__________________
Catz Meow
Badly behaved.
Hedonistic Lemming.

************************************************** ***
JW Frogen, my new favorite noob poster:

If you are such a weak jellyfish you can be bullied on a forum where you can ignore any poster you do not want to read than I suggest you move to Tibet, convert to Buddhism, protest the Chinese occupation, be killed as you will by the Chinese and hope you come back with some form of backbone.