Yes, the CoJCoLDS can and WILL be reformed. But it's always been a straggler. In a generation or two, the Mormon church will be where just about everybody else is now. Just as Joseph Smith and Brigham Young wouldn't recognize the church of today, Gordon Hinckley and Thomas Monson wouldn't recognize the church that will emerge in the 22nd century.

.....as it bumps up against the rest of the world. Always behind but playing catch up even though it claims to be set 'firm as the mountains.' Turns out mountains move/change too, albeit slowly

AHA, so the whole church is a "Rough Stone Rolling"?

squeebee Wrote:
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> AHA, so the whole church is a "Rough Stone
> Rolling"?

More like a large turd rolling. ;^)

No, I don't think it can be reformed. But, most importantly why reform it? Anything different from its founding and it is not TSCC anymore as we have seen and they are losing members. Why bother to reform it?

as long as there are assets, which would have to be disposed of in a non-profitable way should they fold.

They are now the fastest changing church in America.

The reason you can tell they will be around is that even those who don't believe find reasons to stay.


Anagramy

It is a corporation that exists to make money. As long as its religious front gives the higher ups perks, it will continue in some form.

What do you mean "can be?" Its constantly being reformed all the time! Want to know what the Morg originally looked like? Look no further than the FLDS.

The LDS religion has changed massively since its inception. Nearly all of their most unique doctrines have been eroded away over time or are currently being eaten away.
-Polygamy and racism (although, unfortunately, racism wasn't unique when it started) have been dropped completely.
-Most of the weirdest parts of the temple have been dropped and at least a few more are apparently under consideration.
-The Book of Abraham has been demoted from a real, live translation, to a mere product of Joseph Smith's "inspired" mind, and I doubt the Book of Mormon will be more than a couple generations behind.
-The Lamanites, once a proud (fictional) race which spanned all of the Americas and most of Oceania, is now relegated to "probably technically extinct," thanks to the DNA essay.
-Men becoming gods? Not anymore! The Morg now dances around a vague idea of "becoming like God."
-Women are organizing against the patriarchal hierarchy.
-The Morg's view on homosexuality has gone from "The Miracle of Forgiveness" all the way to their current "Just keep it in your pants, you perverts!" policy. Uh... Baby steps on that one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2014 03:06AM by nickname.

What could you name such a reformed church that would describe it...if such reformation were even possible?
"The One True Reformed Church of Christ"?
The Book of Mormon would be gone and hence, the name "Mormonism".
The Book of Abraham...gone.
Mandatory tithing...gone.
Temple bs...gone.

Faith, Repentance and baptism would be about all that's left.

Corporation of Unrepentant Lying Twatheads

C.U.L.T. Inc. Worldwide Leader in Behavior Modification

We know if you've been notty or nice.

Why bother.

The whole religion is built on a foundation of lies. It can never be what it claims to be. What could justify reforming something like that? The church needs to be discredited, dismantled, and examined to see how such wide scale fraud could come to exist. We need to learn from historical mistakes so as to not repeat them.

Exactly. How can you reform something that's bullshit to begin with?

azsteve Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The whole religion is built on a foundation of
> lies. It can never be what it claims to be. What
> could justify reforming something like that? The
> church needs to be discredited, dismantled, and
> examined to see how such wide scale fraud could
> come to exist. We need to learn from historical
> mistakes so as to not repeat them.

In criminal law there is the principle of "the fruit of the poisonous tree." If the tree (of evidence) is tainted, then all discoveries and conclusions derived from it are tainted also and inadmissible.

Example: A cop illegally searches a car trunk, and the driver blurts out, "Yeah, I killed the guy!" If/when the search is deemed illegal, his spontaneous confession is now inadmissible.

LDS goes back to the purported veracity of the first appearances and the authenticity of the BoM. As the fraudulent nature of these events (the poisonous tree) are established and accepted more widely, everything else (e.g. "living prophet," the tithe, temple ritual) will be seen as fraudulent, contrived, and exploitative.

It's been reforming since day one. Its in a constant state of evolution. Blacks and the priesthood, polygamy, temple changes, etc.

It can never reform completely without losing its foundation which is a claim to restoration of the true church by Joseph Smith and succeeding living prophets. Once it loses those two then it ceases to be "Mormon" and the church will cease to exist as there is no reason to pay tithing and obey the leaders if they have no authority.

...and the corporate side of the beast.

The CORE of the church is a business with the ultimate product of claiming to have living prophets. The church will always be corrupt and abhorrent until these two aspects are gone and the leaders won't be too willing to give up these two things. As the saying goes "power corrupts and corrupts absolutely." We've seen LDS Inc change a lot of doctrines and practices but its only getting worse in the sense that its turning more and more into a corrupt corporate cult.

To what end?

No I don't think it will be reformed to the degree that would make it a more accepting, mainstream, "normal" religion.

There is too much that is unique to the church that is an integral part of the doctrine that they would never bend on - requiring 10% to get a TR, going to the temple in the first place, the BoM, that men and only men can hold the priesthood, the law of chastisty - no premarital sex, their view on the families (one man one woman), unpaid callings, Bishops, VT/HT, garments…

The list goes on. I would be very shocked if I see any of the above going away in my lifetime.

(the use of) Birth Control used to be a no-no, but the application / significance was, as usual, very local. I doubt if anyone was ever disciplined regarding it, but now it's a non-issue.

DOMcKay sent out a SM letter about it; if that was read in SM next sunday, probably lots of Loud Laughter & snickering would take over for a few minutes (same about oral/anal sex!)

what really matters to the rank-and-file isn't the decisions of the Q15/GAs, it's how it reaches them in church and in the home.

Despite how out-of-touch the GAs are, they won't rub salt in a wound.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2014 11:42AM by guynoirprivateeye.

It has been reforming itself for 184 years. But not always in the direction or at the speed we would prefer.

I think that I know what you are asking and the answer is no.

There will be concessions here and there as the leadership is not married ot any particual doctrine at the time, but the vacuum of taking and giving nothing back, specially socially and economically is turned to 10. They are short money and want more, and they can only cut spending and divert funds to "wordly" investments in orderto make up for the tithing losses.

Thry have nothing to offer and in exchange for nothing they want everything, so more people will continue to walk away. The doctrine of "becuase I said so", does not bode well for religions now days.

My take is that there are only two ways to go.

FIRST Way:
Stay the course. Continue to excommunicate dissenters and remain secretive. I think the reasons for secrecy are clear, the information would humiliate them. They can't open their books. I think money slips through their fingers and dribbles to an ever expanding class of Mormon royalty through the real estate projects. It's not outright theft, it's inefficiency designed to benefit the same families, generation after generation.

It's more like hands washing each other. These families have to do favors for the church as well. Spend their money when the church needs an intermediary.

There are probably business types in the organization who can't stand the Corporate sole. "Why are we foregoing business opportunities so that these old duffers can have their wasteful pointless religious crusades?"

Anyhow, some members who really love the NT gospels might not like how much their church is obsessed with real estate, and free labor.

It's grossly inefficient but there are those who benefit from this inefficiency. This could backfire if the wall of secrecy is broken.

SECOND Way.
The notion of human rights is forced upon them by international laws and limits are placed on "institutional" religious freedom. If the Supreme Court says that religious liberty is an individual freedom, not the right for a church to be answerable only to God - that would be huge.

The church never made a move in the right direction that wasn't forced upon it by a crisis. They change when they are forced to. Members for the most part are mindless drones, they aren't going to withhold their tithing to force a change. (Some of them might embrace the notion that they should be paying less.) Change will come from someone with a bigger stick, like SCOTUS or governmental laws.

In the US we're pretty damn backward with the religious fundamentalism, we'll hold out longer than Europe.

I guess there is a THIRD way, do the honorable thing. Institute reforms with the goal of being of service to mankind and making the members happy. NAHHHH, never happen.

The mormon church is like a nuclear power plant that has had a melt down, and contaminated the ground and drinking water around it. You can take all the contaminated dirt and bury it out in the middle of Nevada, and bring in new dirt from somewhere else. The power plant may be gone, but would you want to build your house and live on that land, and drink water from wells dug there? No matter how much they tried to haul away every bit of contaminated dirt there is still some there. That bit of ground is dangerous, and always will be dangerous because of the power plant that was once there. Trying to bury all the contamination is impossible, and no rational person would live there.

the definition of reform>

To improve by alteration, correction of error, or removal of defects; put into a better form or condition.
To abolish abuse or malpractice in.
reform the government.
Tn. noun
A change for the better; an improvement.
Correction of evils, abuses, or errors.
Action to improve social or economic conditions without radical or revolution to put an end to (a wrong).


So obviously to reform the church would mean that it would have

to be completely made into something else since it is now a

lie filled load of fiction ..... so why bother? Why reform

shit? What's the point?

Sure, why not. After all they reformed Egyptian.

Reforming the LDS church seems to me a lot like trying to polish a turd.

The Fraud can always be reformed but it is still a Fraud with real live criminals in charge!

Sure it can be reformed. Every religion gets reformed or goes extinct.

Judaism had a rather rough start, rife with genocide, animal sacrifice, polygamy, and misogyny. Give it a few thousand years, and nobody can argue that things have changed.

Christianity was an apocalyptic cult in the beginnings. It splintered into a number of sects, each of which later reformed.

Catholicism committed inquisitions and condoned spreading the word by the sword. Under the most recent pontiff, it's arguably reformed for the better.

150 years ago, the LDS church was actively racist and practiced polygamy. Today, those elements of the church are gone.

Every embryonic religion undergoes change.

to me anyway, the idea of being reformed suggests an individual or group of reformer(s) who are overtly working in a systematic way towards well-defined goals, whose progress can be observed & measured, 'bottom up'.


I don't think that Mormon reformers (at least "successful" ones), are systematically at work, I think it's more of an organic, fits & starts evolutionary migration that are experiencing erratic results.

The only reason the leaders would attempt to 'look' reformed is so they could continue to collect money.

If there's no money in it, it will disappear.