can't get over the BoM. joseph smith couldn't have written it. i can't leave unless i KNOW it's not true.

It's a true work of fiction! Perhaps if you do some reading ABOUT the BOM, you will have a testimony of its truthiness.

*snif* *snif*

I smell troll.

If I am wrong, do some searching..we didn't write it... but he sure did plagurized it!

....Covet

....stealing

.....Murder

and the fact that JOE S did not teach any doctrine from

the BofM makes one highly suspicious.

Read "Quest foe the Gold Plates" by Larsen.

the proof of the falsity is about three-quarters of an inch thick, and written on paper.

Good luck.

HH =)

nope. not a troll. really trying to figure this out for myself. the "murder/stealing" arguments don't really hold with me, as i believe in the Bible, and goodness knows there's plenty of killing in the OT. i'd just like to know the best resources for figuring this out, legitimately.

Think about the bible a bit. Just start with the O.T. You believe a man lived in a whale? You believe in a worldwide flood? Even the apologists now admit that the flood was a localized event, and NOT worldwide. You believe people were turned into pillars of salt?

Genesis is just a bunch of soft porn IMO. It is filthy. And the God of the O.T. is not a God I could ever or would ever want to believe in. He is vengeful and jealous. He demands to be worshipped and adored. Would a real God have such crappy self esteem. I mean really, think about it.

If you want to learn a lot, and get both sides of the story go on "mormon think", and you will study out in no time. If there is a God, he gave you your mind, and I surely he will not fault you for using it. It is a very good site for people that are beginning to doubt and do not want to hear hateful and angry stuff.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2011 10:30PM by think4u.

Moroni's promise of knowing it is true was a promise to the Lamanites. Look what the Native Americans including a tribe from New York say about the nonsense of Lamanites:

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1590/In-Laman-s-Terms--Looking-at-Lamanite-Identity

Tell you what. Assuming you are not a troll, why don't we work it from this angle then:

Let's just assume as a starting point that the Book of Mormon is in fact true, and that Joseph Smith was truly God's holy prophet and restored the fullness of the gospel to the earth. And additionally, let's just accept that when Smith died and factions split, Brigham Young was the Lord's anointed to continue leading His true church. If these things are true, then you must absolutely leave the church and you must do it without delay. Why? Because today's church has strayed greatly from the teachings of Joseph Smith and his true successor Brigham Young. If Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were prophets of God, then it is unquestionable that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as led by Thomas S. Monson today, is an apostate church.

Smith and Young taught that polygamy is essential to eternal salvation and progression, and that it is an eternal law that is unalterable and must be practiced. Today's church excommunicates you for it. Joseph Smith included the death oaths in the temple ordinances and taught that the temple ordinances must never be changed. Today's ordinances do not include those oaths, and have undergone several other changes as well. Young taught that Adam is God (see Journal of Discourses). Today's church denies this and has thereby apostatized from the teachings of God's holy prophet. Brigham Young (and I believe Joseph Smith also) quite clearly taught that blacks would not be allowed to hold the priesthood in this life, and that this would not change before the return of Christ. In 1978, the church gave blacks the priesthood, thereby directly defying the teachings of the prophets Joseph and Brigham. As a final example for now, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young clearly taught that any church other than the LDS church was the church of the devil, and an abomination to the Lord. Today's church states that other churches are good and have much light and truth, in direct contradiction to the Prophet Joseph and the modern day Moses.

So there you have it. If the Book of Mormon isn't true and Joseph Smith wasn't a prophet, then you must leave the Mormon church. If the Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith was a prophet, then you must leave the Mormon church which is beyond any shadow of a doubt now in great apostasy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2011 07:43PM by mobegone.

You speak the truth.

It's not like it's great literature. One of the creative team for the BoM musical referred to it as "bible fan fiction."

Now if it were more like "The Lord of the Rings" then you'd have a good point.

+1

Please read Insider's View of Mormon Origins by Grant Palmer STAT

real places and real things, and believe them by faith, then stay a member of the LDS Church.

If you understand and know the BOM is fiction, plagiarized other works, including the Bible; about imaginary people, places and things, and that Joseph Smith didn't see any angel/s, or have any golden plates, (validated by spiritual eye claims only) then those are reasons (along with dozens of other reasons) to leave the LDS Church.

Up to you.

whatever2011 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> can't get over the BoM. joseph smith couldn't have
> written it. i can't leave unless i KNOW it's not
> true.

Why do you want out? Do you have doubts? The Church is more than the BoM and from where I stand there is a lot to be doubting.

Personally, I find the BoM to be one of the biggest pieces of evidence against Joseph Smith and the Church. After studying the origins and content of the book is clearly not ancient — but clearly a 19th century piece of work complete with 19th century myths, anachronisms and KJV translation errors.

What makes you think he couldn't have written it? Sure it's somewhat impressive— but it's actually a pretty poorly written book especially when you see it in manuscript form....(ie before the printer cleaned it up). "Alma was a goin'...." etc.

In any event JS was not the unschooled rube he's made out to be in LDS history. He was intelligent and articulate enough. I think he could have written it. B.H. Roberts, Seventy and LDS historian thinks so a well.

Compare the View of the Hebrews parallels to the BoM. Compare the BoM text (plots, preaching style) to other 19th century works.


Books that helped me see the BoM is BS:

Insiders View of Mormon Origins by Palmer
Quest for the Gold Plates by Larson
American Apocrypha
New Approaches to the Book of Mormon
Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church
Studies of the Book of Mormon - B. H. Roberts


But then I have a different view of scripture than most LDS anyway. Look at the Bible and how it was put together and you realize that it much of was written after the fact. The books chosen to be included were chosen by men leering others out…but why. What's the criteria? How do they know what God wanted included if anything. Fact is so called 'scripture' is about what men think about God rather than anything about a supreme being……. if one exist to begin with.


Keep studying and looking for the facts. I think you'll be surprised at what you find.

dude,

what makes you think he wrote it (or in this case -- what makes you think he translated golden tablets that he dug up in New York that no one saw that before anyone could see them because he was behind a curtain and then Lucy Harris said fuck no and then burned them and then he had to write them again but he knew that maybe Lucy didn't burn them because he was smart like a fox so ............ahh I'll stop now.)

Can you give my free passage over the George Washington Bridge if you are a troll? Seriously, it's like $8 now.

Be a pal.

You would still stay in?

What a ridiculous way to deal with a belief system.

The BoM is its own giveaway.

"Joseph Smith couldn't have written it"
So, the ONLY alternative is that GOD wrote it???
There is a good theory that it was written mainly by Spalding and Rigdon, but even in the ABSENCE of a specific theory, one can readily REASON that GOD didn't write a book that...

...has a contextual theme of a black-skin curse.
...has a contextual theme of a curse on Jews.
...claims numerous anachronisms contradicted on all hands by empirical observations not even trying to attack it.
..."confirms" biblical absurdities.
...Exorts you to test the truth of the book by applying a method found in the book (circular reasoning).

Snap out of it. Break the spell.

I'm blunt because I was a chapter-a-day literal believer for 18+ years, and it hit me all at once that it's FICTION.

My hell, I could have written it. It is a little story full of plagerisms from the bible and most likely many other sources; there is very, very little of mormon doctrine actually in it, and I have read it many times. In fact, it is mostly about how to war well.

IF it is the most correct book on earth, where are the teachings about temple work for the dead, plural marriage, 3 degrees of glory,polyandry, adam god that BY taught but then Kimball said he was wrong on that one, sealing of families, becoming Gods and Goddesses in the CK, priesthood ordination, and on and on. Even what it does say is NOT true: that if you live all God's commandments you will prosper, but if you don't you will suffer. How many rich people do you know that you consider rather evil, and how many destitute members of the church give their all and still have nothing? Sorry, it is all a pile.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2011 10:20PM by think4u.

As you say you don't want to leave unless you know it's wrong, why would you want to be in the church unless you know it's right? Just a thought...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2011 10:55PM by chrismooon.

Nobody outside of those committed to mormonism give the book any credence whatsoever.

Instead of believing the mormon story of its miraculous origin, check out all the other probabilities for its origin. Hell, for that matter, read a high school lit book. The Book of Mormon is stupid.

Get out of the cave once in a while. See how the rest of the world currently and historically lives.

First, Joseph Smith most definitely could have written the Book of Mormon. Just because he was an "uneducated farm boy" as the LDS church loves to spout, it doesn't mean he can't read and write. In addition, people back then read their Bible and he was obviously very interested in religion. You have some good reading material suggested by others, you should check out those links and books.

Second, we don't know everything that happened. Someone else could have written it.

Third, I'm not a 100% sure that Bigfoot doesn't exist. We're not a 100% sure of most things, but I'm not going to make myself believe in those things, "just in case" they are true either. The Koran is pretty damn impressive but I'm not going believe in it that either. And I don't think God (if he exists) expects that of us either. If God is out there I think he expects us to use our brain and our own conscience.

I challenge you to open the Book of Mormon to any random page and just count the times it says "and it came to pass". It's just repetitive garbage, and quite obviously a work of nineteenth century fiction, not an ancient work. Not to mention all the missing plants, species, fossils, bones, weapons, cities, languages, diseases and hard DNA evidence that would be present in the Americas if it were true.

As false as the Book of Mormon is, the Book of Abraham is... is.. well just watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcyzkd_m6KE
It's a doozy!

I'm no philosopher, but using the bible to prove the bible is ridiculous and so is using the BOM to prove the BOM.

It's like saying "I know that Joseph Smith spoke the truth because he told me he did."

And you are right that outside of Mormonism, no one gives this book any credence whatsoever.

No one these days buys even a toy for a 5-year-old without consulting those with varying experiences of it, or perusing umpteen different reviews at Amazon.

That is why when I come here and read the words "anti" literature, or "Mormon sources", I do IRL, LOL.

If I buy a car, I drive it first. More than once. I ask other people who own this model--and other people who once owned it, but got rid of it for some reason. I go online and check sources other than the car salesman's brochure.

I read books written by car experts who have ridden in it or driven it, and have something to say--positive or negative--about it. Not just those written by people from X Car Company, who only say good things about their own X Car--and who also warn me not to go look at what Y Company says about it.

I think carefully about what I am willing to pay for it, what I am willing to accept as its faults, and the reasons I see positives in it.

I DO NOT buy a car because I have always bought that particular model of car. Or because this is the car my parents have told me is best, that they have always driven---having never driven any other kind of car.

I do not buy the car because my good friends have one, and say it's the best, though I can clearly see it's always in the shop, and then they say just ignore that please, it's still the best! Really!

Because people will love me more if I do, or because they will not like me at all if I don't.

Because it looks pretty good as I pass it on the street, or I'll get a prize if I do.

I know being Mormon is not like buying a car, but choosing to stay one when you question it to high heaven, actually kind of is.

Choosing to do it, like buying a lemon you knew was a lemon when you took it home, means you only have yourself to blame. But if you're willing to live with that, think you can make lemonade out of it, and also be happy with lemonade while the rest of the world drinks Sangria, then go right ahead.

And to continue the fruit thing:

Arguing about it probably won't make you choose a different lemon. Ignoring having to choose a lemon in the first place won't make any lemon you eventually choose taste any sweeter, or more bitter, to you.

Choose a lemon, or refuse to ever touch one again in your life. Choose a smaller one than you thought at first you would like, or a bigger one than anyone else has ever seen. Bite it, or slice it, or throw it on the ground or my preference, throw it in some Sangria.

But before you do anything regarding the lemons in your life, make sure what you are actually talking about it is, in fact, a lemon. Not a lemon masquerading as a mango, or a rare, poisonous fruit which just so happens to look like a lemon.

Then do, or do not. There is no try. ~ Yoda

'Joseph Smith couldn't have written it...'

Why not?

He made up the Book of Abraham
He made up two doctrines aimed at keeping his wife quiet
He translated the Kinderhook Plates even though they were a fraud
He made up the book of Moses
He made up several significantly different versions of the First Vision
He made up the temple ceremonies

He was a creative genius who had the Charisma to convince people to follow him.

People say that there is no way Adolf Hitler could have written Mein Kampf, yet he managed to secure more followers in a couple of decades than Joseph Smith has in nearly 200 years.

Does Mein Kampf and the amount of people who bought into Naziism prove that Adolf was true?

For a less serious look at the Bo of M, just read the account of the Jaredite barges. And as you read try and sketch out how they might have looked - size, construction, passengers etc...

Of course Joseph Smith could have written it. The book is based on ideas about religion, American prehistory, and American Indians that were prevalent in his time.

To understand that you have to study the history of that time. You could start by learning about the "mound builders", or rather the "mound builder theory". The Book of Mormon is a work of fiction, a historical novel about the time of the supposed "mound builder" civilization in and around the Ohio valley. One link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mound_builder_%28people%29 . Scroll down to "Alternative explanations".

Second, you'll want to know about the Second Great Awakening, and in particular about the Restoration Movement ("Campbellites") of that time. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Awakening

Analyses of word usage patterns in the Book of Mormon indicate multiple authors.

About 25% of the text is attributed to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, then living in upstate New York and Eastern Pennsylvania. They contributed prophesies in 2 Nephi telling about a future great prophet named Joseph (of course), cursed and sinking treasures in Helaman, and other text that is consistent with the their beliefs and life experiences.

Chapters copied from the King James Bible (chapters copied from Isaiah, Malachi, and Matthew) account for another 10% of the text.

Most of the remainder is split between Sidney Rigdon --a Reformed Baptist minister-- and Solomon Spalding, an ailing would-be novelist who died in 1816 (14 years before the Book of Mormon was published). Both Rigdon & Spalding lived and wrote in the Easter Ohio/Western Pennsylvania area, about 5 days travel from Smith and Cowdery.

From 1810-1816, Spalding wrote and revised a manuscript called Manuscript Found. Manuscript Found is now missing, but it was reportedly written in the "Old Style" of the King James Bible, made frequent use of the phrase "came to pass", and told of the Ten Tribes coming to America, where the tribes split into two major warring groups - the Lamanites and the Nephites. The Lamanites destroyed the Nephites and became the ancestors to the Native Americans.

Spalding lacked the funds for printing Manuscript Found, so his manuscript was unpublished when he died in 1816. It was left at a Pittsburgh-area print shop. Rigdon, who then worked as a tanner and supplied leather book binds to the print shop, acquired a copy. From 1825 to 1827, Rigdon modified Spalding's manuscript, inserting theology from his mentor Alexander Campbell, along with his own theology about gifts of the Spirit, the idea of having "all things in common", and prophesies about the gathering of Israel. He passed off the revised text to Cowdery and Smith. To excite public interest in the book, Smith and Cowdery concocted a miraculous story about gold plates and angels. Smith then raised $2500 to get the manuscript published. He did this through a con of Martin Harris, his wealthy neighbor. Smith pretended to translate from gold plates while Harris recorded dictation. Later, Cowdery recorded the dictation, provided editing, and helped to organize the 3 and 8 witnesses.

A complication occurred when Lucy Harris, Martin's wife, got rid of the first 116 pages. This led Smith, Cowdery & Rigdon to improvise, adding material copied from Isaiah, content similar to Ethan Smith's "View of the Hebrews", materials from their own life experiences, and material from Walter Scott, one of Rigdon's religious competitors, and other material in the Book of Ether and the Book of Moroni.

Cowdrey et al. (2005) tell much of this story in their book "Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon".

Are you suggesting that an all knowing creator God wrote it or at least dictated its contents?

Then this a stupid dumb ass of a God who knows nothing of how his earth came to be populated and how it's plants and animals spread around or how humans progressed economically.

The book of mormon is so innacurate historically and archeologically that it's proof enough to me that Smith did conjure it up, albeit plageurised a mish mash from many other sources at the time.

Actually JS could have written it. He was a good writer and a great story teller growing up. The evidence against the BofM is too great - namely lack of any archeological evidence, anachronisms, quotes from the New Testament before they were written, lack of hebrew DNA, timing of the individual writers would have made them 150+ years old plus lugging around gold plates, logistics - warriors, plus family traveling all over North America - how do you feed them especially in the southwest? One of the greatest arguments really is if you read the BofM there is very little indication of a people living the law of Moses - no feasts, no rituals, no celebrations. As if it were written by someone who new nothing about Judaism - like Joseph Smith. I could go on like this for pages without even going into great detail. So wake up and do the research!