"Trying to say it's absurd that a religion would lie to obtain money, especially with 14 million members!!"

Seems to me that statement opens the door for Tom and his lawyers
to begin listing the lies, both of commission and omission.

For instance, Tom has already cited on Mormonthink what happened to the RLDS church when they admitted that the BOM was ahistorical---they lost a lot of members and thus money. Thus, it's in the LDS church's financial interests to maintain the lie that the BOM is historical.

A general comment---based on the notes provided by cityworker, it seems to me that the church's lawyer isn't very well-prepared. I get the feeling that he expected to throw out a few legal citations and the judge would dismiss the charges in short order. You'd think that Monson & Co. would have spent the time and money to prep their lawyers better on the nuances of church history, doctrine, etc. Maybe their problem is that Monson & Co. misunderestimated the merits of this whole case.

I liked that statement too, because the 14 million member figure is a lie.

The Invisible Green Potato Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I liked that statement too, because the 14 million
> member figure is a lie.

The problem is that nobody can verify the actual number of members because the definition of "member" is so nebulous. Counting everyone who has ever been baptised, dead or alive till age 110, resigned or not, active or inactive, probably does support the 14 million number.

This membership number tapdance is, to me, a prime example of TSCC's creative truthtelling.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2014 11:00AM by jan.

Aside from the fact the "number of believers/members" figure is pretty much irrelevant to logical fact. Reality is not changed just because a large number of people believe something otherwise.

Let me put this another way. If "# of people who believe something" was really a reliable metric or cause for reality somehow warping Mormonism STILL wouldn't be true considering what a tiny percentage of the world population 14 million people actually is...

The church lawyer made a huge argument by logical fallacy.

Indeed. It's a registered fallacy:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

Except it's pretty clear from census data that TSCC's membership claims are bogus. When the church is consistently reporting membership numbers 5x higher than government censuses show in places like Mexico, Chile, Brazil, it's a pretty solid indication that their reports are fraudulent.

That's 14 million members that have been potentially defrauded.

...then no members would ever be shocked or dismayed when they begin studying the non-church produced documentation of Joseph Smith's folk-magic practices, the varying first visions, the inconsistencies in the BOM translation process, lack of evidence for the BOM's historicity, etc.

IOW, if not for the church lying, there would be no "anti-Mormon literature", no RFM, no Mormonthink, etc. If all Mormons were told this information BY THE CHURCH clearly and unreservedly, there would be a lot fewer Mormons---as evidenced by the numbers of Mormons who resign when they DO learn of it.

Exactly!

;o)

"Trying to say it's absurd that a religion would lie to obtain money, especially with 14 million members!!"


I presume that the barrister in question is not actually LDS, but appeals to membership numbers as a validating circumstance are certainly a favored LDS technique:


"Of course we're a respected/respectable _world-wide_ religion: we've got 14 million members."

It seems absurd that they would say that, considering that the church lied to get converts in England in 1852.

Men in Utah had more than one wife but the Doctrine and Covenants published in Liverpool said "Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy; we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife; and one woman but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again."
http://archive.org/stream/bookofdoctrineco01unse#page/330/mode/2up

Those that were lied to are among the ancestors of the 14 million today.

Wowza. I've never seen that quote before.

;o)

Hear, hear! The duplicity of early mormon leaders in England and Europe was shameful.

The real money quote is to have them claiming, in court, that their scriptures and teachings about the actual history of the Americas and the ancient world are "belief" and not "fact."

I was never taught that.

The damage is done already... that won't sit well with members.

You underestimate the power of cognitive dissonance. I can see TBMs putting on the blinders already and acting like they never claimed the BoM was FACT.

Look at how TBMs gloss over other doctrinal changes in their life. They already act like it was never taught that Native Americans are of Lamanite descent, and that was a VERY recent change.

It's true that many members would put on blinders.....but think about how many members there must be that have put those blinders on and are just a tidbit of truth away from taking them off, looking/ hoping for a reason to take them off.

I there are many mormons that are very tired of wearing those awful blinders. That's where the bang for the buck is in this case.

Just look at Kirby's column today. He says he knows all the troubling stuff and still believes. Many members wouldn't care if Monson himself claimed it was all made up. They'd believe. For others, well they care about their integrity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2014 12:02PM by Devoted Exmo.

it's a community - it's their community - and it meets a need for them. The 'truth' of the matter only matters to the degree that it reinforces cooperation and mutual support. There probably was never any fundamental commitment to the pursuit of objective truth - we just thought there was. Now this fact is becoming more apparent.

Truer words were never said . . er typed.

I think the money quote now is "Monson [you know, the Prophet] can't be held responsible for what the corporation, err, church, says."

LIKE!!!!

I'm with this one. I mean, seriously, that barrister did the church's case no favours by claiming the corporate SOLE has no responsibility for church claims.

And aside from the legal status of the corporation, what does it mean to say on one hand that the church is led directly by God through his Living Prophet (one wants to put TM here); and, on the other, the prophet isn't responsible for what the church says. In what sense, then, is the church being led by God through the prophet. His lawyers argue that what's promoted by the church has got nothing to do with him. I guess TSM reads Kirby.

There's a hymn I remember I used to sing that says: "We thank thee o gawd for a profit, to LEAD US and GUIDE US in these latter days...

Yeah I think he's responsible...

Follow the prophet, follow the prophet, follow the prophet, he knows the way!

Yes, typical LDS fallacies won't hold in court (14 million can't be wrong!)

That statement alone speaks volumes about the morg!!

The corporation....I mean church...I mean Jesus smith... I mean joseph... I mean..... Uh....uh....

Hahahah. So far so good. This is better than I ever expected. Let's hope Tom Phillips does some new interviews during this week.

I have a feeling that the church's lawyers really have no defense at all and they are just hoping something sticks.

I think it would be great if some little kids came marching in singing "Follow the prophet, follow the prophet, he KNOWS the way!"

I think it's interesting and possibly implicative, that they don't know the difference between a belief and a fact.

If TSCC had claimed all along that the BOM is a book of parables and teachings from God that JS received through revelation for our edification, you can either choose to believe that or not. It's a belief. If they claim it's a true history of people who actually lived, they are lying about fact. There's just too much evidence to prove that it is not what they are claiming it to be.

You can choose to believe that God the Father and his clone Jeebus appeared to JS in 1820. That is a belief. Cannot be proven or disproven, no matter how bizarre a claim it is. If someone tells you the Book of Abraham is a book of scripture written by Abraham and translated by JS, they are lying about fact. That can easily be disproven.

You can believe that God created the Earth 6,000 years ago. If someone tells you the Earth is 6,000 years old, they are lying about fact. But you can believe God took pieces from old planets and created a new one, or whateverthehell floats your boat.

So if someone is lying about facts and convinces you that if you give them a bunch of money, the snake oil will save your soul, that is FRAUD. They KNOW it won't. They can tell you all day and night that they believe it will. They would be lying.

a great freudian slip was when the lawyer called it a corporation :) lol