This is another argument I heard recently. The person that made this argument went on to say that other christian faiths don't have a leg to stand on, doctrinally speaking, so they and everyone else always attack the history of TSCC. "TSCC just makes sense!" were his words.

My personal opinion is that christianity itself was/is flawed so JS and his cohorts took advantage of that to start their own flavor of religion. This argument won't hold up with a believer, what are some other angles I can take?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2013 09:51AM by Hold Your Tapirs.

When TBM's go on about how the history doesn't matter because the church is still true, I reply that although I lost my testimony because of history, I resigned because of TSCC's current behavior.

Then I list things like:
Building a Mall
Prop 8
Excommunicating Historians
Licked cupcake object lessons
Hypocrisy
Priestcraft
Money Changing at the Temples
Lack of Transparency
Etc.

"Money Changing at the Temples"


THAT....is a biggie for anyone who knows judeo-christian theory and the New testament.

The Mormon temple sounds just like the temple in Christ's time when Christ tore through the temple knocking over the tables..

Really? He says it makes sense? Wow, send him my way.

Racism and polygamy were/are doctrine; not just history. Mormons live in a fishbowl and naive for thinking it makes sense. They can't claim modern revelation, and then be no better than the times. In fact, they're frequently behind the times. I guess they call past prophetic failures "history," while never actually defining current doctrine. Convenient for them, I suppose.

so lying is OK?

'doctrine' is only a hypothetical construct, it's Application that makes a difference in people's lives. those are deeply divided /disconnected/ 'uncoupled' in Mormonism.

Well for one thing, once the history shows the Church to have been created by a con man, then the doctrine all goes out the window anyway.

The doctrine of the TSCC is a slippery thing. Who knows what is truly 'doctrine'? Even Hinkley had a difficult time remembering if they taught what I considered a doctrinal pillar. When are the ones in charge of establishing doctrine talking as 'men' or as 'prophets'?

Also a lot of what the average Mormon considers doctrine could also be considered mormon folklore, and if they delved even further into the 'doctrine' they believe they may find it never actually was.

What doctrine? Most mainstream religions have a "Book of Doctrine" (under various names) of what they believe. As the old saying, trying to nail down mormon doctrine is like trying to nail green jello to the wall.

The Big15 say they can't be bothered with doctrine, don't ask them, don't write them, ask your local bishop.

The reason that people attack history, is because they have no doctrine. Ask him to show you in writing what the doctrine of mormons is. It's whatever the current profit emphasizes, which depends on which way the wind is blowing when he holds his finger up.

The closest the mormons have to doctrine is the DOC, but of course ignore the parts about we will become gods, you need to practice polygamy, go preach to the Lamanites (American Indians) next to Missouri (they've been found!)

What EXACTLY is LDS doctrine?

The only GA who attempted to put exactly what the LDS church believes to paper with his book Mormon Dictrine was chastised for his efforts and now that he's dead the church has stopped printing it. If you ask 100 Mormons what the doctrine of the LDS church is you will get 100 different answers and all of them will think their answers are the correct ones. You can't even get a straight answer from the profit.

When Gordon B. "I don't know that we teach that" Hinckley went on Larry King and other shows and LIED about essential parts of LDS doctrine it made me sick. Until then I was just an inactive member. After I saw his interview I became an Ex member of the LDS cult.

LDS doctrine changes depending on who is teaching it and who the intended audience is. It also changes with time and circumstances. It's like trying to nail runny jello to a wall.

It makes it very hard to argue with something that is continually changing. I guess the fact that it is constantly changing is the very best argument against it.

I've had people say to me that the constantly changing doctrine is a sign that the church is true because it received continuing revelation from god. My argument against that is god wouldn't change the doctrine. He would ADD new information to the existing body of knowledge but god would not go back and change doctrine that had already been given.

The doctrine is just an idea in the members head. There is no official doctrine and members believe things that aren't supported by their scriptures.

The watered down, lie filled story the missionaries teach makes some sense, but once you look a little closer and try to live by the scriptures and what's taught by apostles and prophets, you're in a world of trouble.

How so ?

If God loved us wouldn't he make it possible for everyone to return to him?

Shouldn't we have Prophets today like in the scriptures to help guide the church.

Our church believes you can be seal to your family forever(sounds nice, even if it doesn't make sense, even a little bit)

The Bible is confusing don't you think God would give us a second witness to clarify?

Don't you think if God came to the world he would visit the millions of people in the Americas?

If you take these things at face value, and don't think very hard about them. They make some sense.

Christianity is badly flawed, no doubt. Which is why the doctrine is all over the board. Some Christians hold to 'yoke is easy and burden is light', easy-to-adhere-to doctrine which requires little in the way of behavioral change; others are more in line with the 'sell all you have and follow me' school of thought.

The reality is that Christianity is impossible to reconcile. Mormons believe this problem is what necessitated a restoration in the first place. No believer should disagree with you on that account, as it's at the core of the lds religion's purpose.

Modern doctrine thus stems from the notion that Christianity is a jumbled mess. And in some ways lds doctrine represents an advance over Calvinistic or other somewhat harsh doctrines of the time. In lds doctrine, very few go to a traditional 'hell,' everyone can be saved, there is a purpose to the afterlife besides worshiping Jesus, etc. And while the doctrines may be odd / weird, it's no stranger than believing in anything else. Debating doctrine is pointless in any case, because it will always devolve into appeals to authority -- what a mormon prophet said vs. what jesus said vs. what an OT prophet said. The position is dictated by the belief in authority to start with, and it is that belief in authority itself that is largely irrational, not the belief in the purported doctrine. This is why modern politics goes so haywire -- people root for the R or the D without regard to the philosophies espoused.

I'd suggest you go to the heart of the matter -- why does it make sense to the person? Because prophets have explained it, of course. Well, what do we know about these prophets? Go from there.

History was the killer for me, but a lot of mormons are heavily conditioned to not look askance at their leadership.

Well worded and thought out post. Concise and clear. Belief in authority. That's it in a nutshell for 98% of the morgbots, isn't it?

(As I read your post, I found myself nodding my head in agreement, mumbling to myself "Yes, that!" several times. Good job!)

Even my TBM dad told my aunt (his sister) that the church being true rests on the belief that JS was a prophet - if you believe that, then everything falls into place, meaning TSCC is true. She told him that's exactly what she doesn't believe. If the veracity of TSCC rests on JS's shoulders, there's plenty to show that he did quite a lot of crazy stuff, if someone's willing to actually look at it, and some people just won't. And, of course, how do know if he was acting as a man or a prophet? ;) Actually, JS writing that he was better than Jesus Christ, I think is a dead give-away that even he doesn't believe in JC. How could a devout follower say they are better than their leader, better than the god they say they serve? But, as you pointed out, JS probably noticed the flaws in Christianity and wanted to take advantage of that and people's gullibility to get what he wanted, like 33 wives and people worshipping him.

That's kind of true to be honest. We definitely talk more about history problems than doctrine problems on here. I think it's because the things in the history are more shocking and troublesome than two verses in the BoM contradicting each other or something like that.

The reason is that most people don't know the doctrines. The doctrines are as bad, if not worse, than the history. Of course, they are intertwined.

Fine, I'm happy to attack the doctrine too. Or, if you like, I have plenty to say about the psycho/social damage Mormonism does. And like the above poster, I'm also able to stick it to Mormonism for the way it's currently behaving. In fact, the reason I left wasn't because Joseph Smith LIED about the First Vision ... it's because the current leadership is currently LYING about the First Vision.

Mormonism doesn't hold up in any aspect. You can stack a good case against it from any angle. The only good argument I've heard for the existence of Mormonism is that it keeps the wacky/conspiracy theory/emotionally driven nut job types from finding a worse cult and really doing damage. At least with Mormonism, those types of people who thrive on blind obedience and weird mysticism are reigned in a bit by what Mormonism regards as social convention.

And to be fair, LDS doctrine is very hard to talk about. Getting it straightforward, fair and accurate is like pinning the tail on the Cheshire Cat. Once you think you've got it, it disappears again.

Ask him, "Which, SPECIFIC, doctrine do you believe is not being attacked?" I am fairly certain you will be able to show that people attack that "doctrine" all the time.

^^ I like this idea a lot.

I find it highly odd that people in here are claiming that Mormonism has no doctrine. It has TONS of doctrine. Mormons generally don't read their own doctrine, but it is there.

It can easily be attacked as well (as it should). However, it would be silly for Christians to attack Mormon doctrine because theirs is flawed in the exact same ways and makes even less sense.

If I were that Mormon though I wouldn't be so concerned with what other Christian churches thought. The exmos are going to be what brings down Mormonism, not other churches. Either that or possibly the US government forcing the Mormon church to pay taxes. That would also probably do the trick.

They have lots of what they consider doctrine, but they have very little official doctrine (because they have no official definition of official doctrine). Mostly they just follow the policies, and if it's not in the policy they just play it by ear.

This: "The exmos are going to be what brings down Mormonism, not other churches"

is so true.

I grew up in a fairly evangelical corner of a very liberal state. The local Baptist mega-church had a symposium on identifying cults every year. It was always the same targets -- JW,s Mormons, S7A, New Age, and usually some flavor-of-the-month Satanic or suicide cult thrown in there.

The philosophy made no sense, and even pissed me off a little bit. Mormons were going to hell, according to these folks. Baptists were clearly going to heaven, as they were the ones sponsoring it. But who draws the line, and where? Apparently not believing in the 'real Jesus' was good enough to merit eternal burning. So what about Unitarians? Lutherans? Catholics (they usually get lumped in with the rest of us condemned folks)?

The thing that frustrated me the most, I think, was that these people were purporting to know exactly what god would do. That doesn't really make them any different, in my mind, than lds prophets who claim to have the same access to god.

In a nutshell: It's like kids arguing over whose dad can beat up the other's dad, just replace 'dad' with "Imaginary Sky Daddy." If you convince a Mormon to leave because Mormonism makes no sense and Christianity somehow does, you've found somebody being totally intellectually dishonest. People leave the lds church all the time because they don't feel comfortable there. Fine. But for the people who are comfortable within the lds church, you will never make a convincing argument that Christianity is superior in any way.

I agree with exmos being more of a threat than other Christian churches but the real group that is going to destroy Mormonism is the active members. They are clueless about how their behavior comes across to people outside their small clique and equally clueless about their own history and doctrine. Having to deal with Mormons is what turns most people off Mormonism.

Mormonism is a latter-day UFO alien worshipping cult. The just use Christian sounding titles and names to disguise it.

Christianity isn't a UFO alien worshipping cult, is it?

Sky daddy decides to come visit the earth, so he clones himself, and has himself impregnated in a virgin human, then kills himself with some of his other creatures, then dies, then floats into the sky, then 3 days later comes back to visit some different creatures, then periodically makes an appearance on a piece of toast or in a sunset. And he curses and blesses his creatures, sometimes when they ask, and sometimes when they don't ask. And he builds his creatures so they like to hump lots of other creatures of the same species, and then tells all his creatures never to hump other creatures, and to not hump themselves, or their humping toys, unless he says it's ok. And he has lots of his creatures write all sorts of conflicting stories and ideas about him, to keep his other creatures guessing. And his creatures think he loves them, but it's really hard to tell, because he's forever wiping out massive quantities of his creatures with natural earth calamities.

No, nothing goofy there.

Some of the doctrine is like that treasure that JS dug (well watched other people dig) for. It's slippery.

The reason that history is attacked is because it's something concrete which can be pointed to. I've had discussions with TBM on doctrine and they simply zone out.

For example, I was debating something with a TBM and false doctrine. I brought up the Adam-God doctrine and the person said something like "well, maybe BY was just confused."

WTF? He was a prophet of god! He was supposed to be teaching eternal truths to people. This shows that the method of relying on the HG does not work, because if BY can't get it right, how can we?

And the response? "But we don't teach it now."

You can go bald debating a Mormon because of all the hair you pull out of your head.

It's just so much easier to point out historical issues.

After so much denial and explanation and re-explanation, and finally forgetfulness, Mormonism has become like a face after too much plastic surgery.

Unmoving, distorted, frozen in an unnatural distortion, alas with no chance of restoration to a natural expression of faith.

Doctrinally, Mormonism has become a daily tabula rasa. What was true yesterday may be discarded today, including temple truths too sacred to talk about but not too sacred to throw out without even the dignity of an explanation.


Anagrammy

I think it's a dumb argument. If the "history" is no good that puts all the canonized scripture in doubt.

The First Vision, Book of Mormon, D&C, Book of Abraham have "history" problems.

I go to "by their fruits shall you know them" then hit up the history. Keeps it biblical.