Yesterday in downtown SLC, I saw a big poster add on the side of the Church History bldg for the new book Standard of Truth. Here is part of the review from Deseret Book;

"four-volume narrative history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Fast-paced and meticulously researched, Saints recounts true stories of Latter-day Saints across the globe" LoL

5 stars by Deseret Book. What a joke.

The doubters can now be comforted and I recommend that all you anti-Mormon gentile bastards read the book and come back to the fold - and pay your back tithes.

This is so stupid and obvious that I burst out laughing when I saw the poster. Too bad there are so many ring in the nose TBMs. Just read this book of "truth" and stay away from all the anti Mormon books.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/2018 06:18PM by delbertlstapley.

You are right about the "ring in the nose" Mormons. This book is for them to make them feel good about staying and it will work like magic on its intended audience.

Now when anyone brings up any of the parts of the Mormon church which don't stand up to scrutiny (which is all of it), they can claim that because they have read this carefully worded book, or because they even know about the book, that they then can claim to have scrutinized Mormonism and find all to be well in Zion.

The claim to have examined is enough. "Oh yes we've looked in to that," they say. No evidence, reasoning, nor acceptable conclusions are offered. Having "looked at it" suggests that the matter is settled. Works great on people who are dying to hear what they want to hear.

No one is hiding anything anymore. They just have a better Standard of Editing and Phrasing not a Standard of Truth. That is, as you say, laughable.

Every church initiative has been lauded as a great success; no matter how ridiculous. This church history book opens another chapter.

Back in 1987 the church claimed during its church public communication directors' training broadcast that gospel reached many hearts after YW released thousands of balloons (with testimony card) to show their commitment to world peace during the Iceland peace summit.

"I couldn't wait to talk to a member of the church after finding hundreds of deflated helium balloons." said Nobody EVER.

Looks like it is free on Amazon... for Kindle and audiobook.
https://www.amazon.com/Saints-Church-Christ-Standard-1815-1846-ebook/dp/B07FDPJ7MZ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537424283&sr=8-1&keywords=Standard+of+truth

It is still too expensive for me. If they gave me $100, I might browse it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2018 02:21AM by chipace.

chipace Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looks like it is free on Amazon... for Kindle and
> audiobook.
> https://www.amazon.com/Saints-Church-Christ-Standa
> rd-1815-1846-ebook/dp/B07FDPJ7MZ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF
> 8&qid=1537424283&sr=8-1&keywords=Standard+of+truth

The first review on Amazon's page is by my TBM brother.
And it's disgustingly dishonest.
He's been an avid church history "nut" for at least 30 years. Hell, he majored in History at BYU. Yet in the review he says the opposite. You can even check out his profile, and see where he reviewed a series put out by the Maxwell Institute (formerly FARMS), clearly showing he's been following church history. He's even written for the Maxwell Institute.

Now, I love my brother. But I have no problem pointing out his rank dishonesty and hypocrisy in that review -- it's behavior that's rewarded by the church, lying for the lard. Giving a church book a lying review in the hopes it will "move" somebody to read/join, even if the review is flat-out lies. This is what mormonism does to otherwise good people. And it's why the cult sometimes makes me so angry.

If they were giving out awards for best performance by a Mormon apologist I would say the odds are heavy your brother would take home the trophy for best book review.

Very eloquent review by someone for whom church history has always been elusive.

My first question when hearing about this was whether certain inconvenient facts would be swept under the rug, such as the fact that there were many different versions of the First Vision story.

Then I saw one comment that said this:

Volume 1 deals transparently with complex issues such as the following:
• Joseph’s multiple accounts of the First Vision
• Nineteenth-century folk religion and seer stones
• Joseph’s 1826 arrest and trial for being a “disorderly person”
• Translation of the Book of Mormon and testimonies of many witnesses, including Mary Whitmer
• Restoration of priesthood authority and sealing keys
• Dedication of the Kirtland Temple
• The Book of Abraham
• Complex feelings after the Kirtland Safety Society failed
• Persecution of members in Missouri and vigilante actions by Danites
• Plural marriage, including Joseph’s marriage to Fanny Alger and sealings to other women
• Destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor
• The Council of Fifty and its plans to move church members to the West.

So it looks like like there will be a lot in there (possibly so much that it will backfire). But it also looks like they're hoping to use the old complexity-followed-by-simple-faith-promoting-conclusion gambit, as in: "It's all complex and we don't fully understand everything, but, taking the big picture into account [insert faith-promoting conclusion here]".

I may actually get a copy. With the essays published a few years ago, possibly with the facts in this series (assuming that they will be there), it may actually be good times for thinking exmos. In the past, just getting TBMs to accept basic facts could be like pulling teeth if the facts were not available in current, up-to-date GA sermons and Churchco publication. They would basically accuse you of buying into outlandish conspiracy theories if you talked about the peepstone or Joe's secret polygamy club.

Now many of the relevant facts are in official recent Churchco publications. Now it's really just a matter of walking TBMs through some basic logic applied to the facts.

I hope that this statement by David Whitmer (one of the highly esteemed "witlesses" of the Book of Mormon) will be included:

"Well, we were all in great trouble; and we asked Joseph how it was that he had received a revelation from the Lord for some brethren to go to Toronto and sell the copyright, and the brethren had utterly failed in their undertaking. Joseph did not know how it was, so he enquired of the Lord about it, and behold the following revelation came through the stone: 'Some revelations are of God: some revelations are of men: and some revelations are of the devil.' So we see that the revelation to go to Toronto and sell the copyright was not of God, but was of the devil or of the heart of man."

TBH, I don't know how any TBM can stay believing after reading this, unless they convince themselves that David Whitmer was an honest person as a Book of Mormon witless, but was a dishonest person when he spilled the beans on Joe's "Russian Roulette" approach to getting revelation. "Ooops! That revelation was from the Devil! Ooops! That revelation was just a brain fart! Niiiice! I think this revelation is from God...oops! Another brain fart revelation. Just hang in their guys, a real, genyoowine revelation from God is a-comin'. I feel it. Anytime now...just wait for it...."

Yet another apologist book.

Why can’t they throw out everything that came before? Just say since Joe and his friends made it up, the faculty of BYU will make up something completely new for the 21st century. “I, Rusty, have inquired of the Lord...”

the literary style of embellishment and made up conversations may be a breath of fresh air. We've gotten so use to books written very dryly just stating facts that are from some old record.

I look forward to the Mark Twain 1950s once again. More books should be written this way.

Yankee in King Aurthor's court.

Tell the Mormons that the miracles come from God's power, but the ideas in Mormonism are irrationally false. Give them the following analogy:

Two people have a billion dollars each. They each have one son. One gives $50 million to a son and tells him true ideas. The other person gives the second son $50 million but lies to him and controls him the way the money is spent. One son is free. The other son is a slave. Then say, the Mormons are like the second son. The have lots of power from God, but the lies they believe about Mormonism turns them into slaves. However, the more money power they have, they learn to be happy slaves, no matter what the dumb lie is.

They both love their sons emotionally, but that is not issue. The issue is freedom vs slavery.

"Steven E. Snow, executive director of the church history department, said the book provides the whole story behind a difficult time and one that is not well understood.
"If people read this, they'll understand we've been pretty forthright in our telling of the story," Snow said."
https://www.thespectrum.com/story/news/2018/09/04/new-mormon-narrative-history-book-includes-polygamous-roots/1197258002/


Yeah right.

Wait...they're seriously saying, "Read our story so you can see that we've been honest about our story?"

Really?

Yep. Can you believe the balls.

Their narrative has done a 180. They have been fully honest their whole history. Just look at that apostle's grin.

Its my belief that series of books like these would start popping up that got me started on posting here. Where much is given, much is required. Thus in the Church apologetic circles we have got to be completely honest/transparent in how we handle issues that people have with Church History. If people ever started to think that Joseph Smith or any past/present Apostle/Prophet ever themselves or allowed any apologist to get away with lying, deceiving, and not telling the full truth then they'd start to wonder and doubt whether or not our wondrous gospel is really true, i.e. honest/transparent, as we are taught to claim it is thanks to the beloved Correlation program carefully teaching us how to think so peculiarly about everything.