This is what I always believed as a mormon. As soon as Jesus' apostles died, his priesthood was gone from the earth. Joseph Smith, otoh was able to bring the gospel to the earth and it will never be removed. I wonder what Jesus did wrong? Maybe he wasn't as perfect as Joseph Smith.

Did this bother any of you as mormons? It did me. I know this issue is very offensive to Christians.

I joined the Mormon church as an adult. In all my years of activity, I never realized that Mormons believe that the Gospel was ENTIRELY lost from the earth (during the so-called 'great apostasy') and thus, poor ol’ Jesus HAD FAILED!!! and the real savior of humanity was Joseph Smith. It was not until I became inactive and began intensive research about the church that I discovered this.

So my question is, on what basis does the church claim to be Christian if it believes that Christ failed?!

This is one of the "first straws" that bothered me - Why christ couldn't organize a church that outlasted his apostles, and joe smith could. It didn't make sense. Everything else followed after this first 'highly-unlikely' or unbelievable premise.

Yes, related to that it is my understanding that the priesthood line died out. Apostles being martyred and long distances made it difficult to properly ordain successors and then there were usurpers and false priests.

And then we are taught about it being Amen to the priesthood of that man who sins and acts unrighteously and how we can lose our priesthood today through unworthiness. Yet the ordinances we and others perform is still considered valid even if the performer wasn't a worthy priesthood holder.
eg. Adulterous father ordaining son to priesthood only to be exed a year later.
Priest who masturbated or sexually sinned the night before blessing the sacrament.
Each of those the priesthood holder was unworthy and shouldn't be a vessel of the Lord and yet for convenience the ordinances are considered valid.
If that's the logic than the priesthood was never lost as it continued through the catholics. And if you believe the catholics were corrupt you have Luther who had the proper priesthood and did a reformation.

Yet the ordinances we and others perform is still considered valid even if the performer wasn't a worthy priesthood holder.
eg. Adulterous father ordaining son to priesthood only to be exed a year later.
Priest who masturbated or sexually sinned the night before blessing the sacrament.
Each of those the priesthood holder was unworthy and shouldn't be a vessel of the Lord and yet for convenience the ordinances are considered valid.
If that's the logic than the priesthood was never lost as it continued through the catholics. And if you believe the catholics were corrupt you have Luther who had the proper priesthood and did a reformation.

Sooooooooooooooooo, the Cathloics are right??? LOL!!!