I was at a restaurant here in Utah. I overheard some guy giving another guy a lecture about reading everyday. He then told the guy, "Just man up and read it. It's not like you're too busy to do it."

Or, at least read where the Book of Mormon (supposedly) came from (an angel arranged to lead J.S. to the site, which was never again "found", and then the angel took these records back). So, no one need search for the "gold-like" plates again, and thus it is just a matter of trusting J.S's story. (Remember also, no one--NO ONE--actually saw the plates but J.S.. How convenient.

Just like actually reading the entire bible, actually reading the entire book of mormon is a great tool to turn people into atheists and agnostics :)

Exactly. Read it with blind faith and it's just plain boring. Read it with the slightest bit of doubt and it's painfully obvious that it's poorly written fiction.

I read the whole book trying to salvage my faith a couple years ago, but it definitely hurt more than helped. I still prayed for weeks hoping for some kind of confirmation...nothing. I prayed and prayed and wept while afterwards pleading for peace...for some confirmation that God was there and was mindful of what I was going through...nothing. It was too painful. If he/she/it is out there, I tried up to my breaking point...I'm not going to "worship" the nothing.

Reading the book of mormon puts my nevermo husband to sleep. I'm sure it works for others, also.

I would love to have somebody challenge me to read it. I would tell them I made a decision many decades ago to NEVER read it (and I never have) and I would go on to tell that loser that I have destroyed my copies of it too. That should get his/her attention.

Ron Burr

When I was a teenager, some friends gave me a book of mormon to read--probably trying to convert me. I am a voracious reader, but I read about 30 minutes and decided it was bizarre, incredibly boring, and just a bunch of made-up stuff. I couldn't force myself to read any more even to be polite.

Geezus....If I had a pound for everytime I read the book of mormon......

[I might have enough for lunch, today]

If I overheard a conversation telling someone to willfully stick their own head up their ass to be a man I would laugh so hard it would blow French fries out my nose. That is what reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know that it is true is like.

Occasionally I've been tempted to read it again, or part of it, now that I'm on the outside, just to see how it reads when you know it was totally made up. But something more interesting always gets in the way.

I suppose it's rather like reading 19th-century sermons with a lot of battles added in.

No, it is much worse. Published sermons are much better.

Did anyone else have ILLUSTRATED STORIES OF THE BOOK OF MORMON. ??? (Early 1970 ish?) My mother used those as bedtime stories for awhile when my younger brother and I were little. (Decapitation, hacked off limbs in battle, people drowning down river who let go of the iron rod...) Nightmares about the G.D. BoM. I wish I was kidding.

I read all the scriptures as a young teen. God was a sadist, racist, sexist, genocidal homophobe? I couldn't believe my family believed it. Luckily, some of my RM brothers faced reality ten years later...

Remember when they had shiny "gold reformed Egyptian" book covers for the BoM in the 70's? Hahahahaha! =)

Ex-Sister Sinful Shoulders Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Did anyone else have ILLUSTRATED STORIES OF THE
> BOOK OF MORMON. ??? (Early 1970 ish?) My mother
> used those as bedtime stories for awhile when my
> younger brother and I were little. (Decapitation,
> hacked off limbs in battle, people drowning down
> river who let go of the iron rod...) Nightmares
> about the G.D. BoM. I wish I was kidding.
>
> I read all the scriptures as a young teen. God was
> a sadist, racist, sexist, genocidal homophobe? I
> couldn't believe my family believed it. Luckily,
> some of my RM brothers faced reality ten years
> later...
>
> Remember when they had shiny "gold reformed
> Egyptian" book covers for the BoM in the 70's?
> Hahahahaha! =)
________________________________

Picture little AmyJo, hands high and waving, saying "I do, I do!"

Yep, my mom loved to read us bedtime stories. She went out of her way to get that collection just so she could read them to us. I wanna say it was at least 3 or 4 volumes to the set. She read through each one, in order.

It was nauseating, truth be told. No wonder I used to get nightmares so much. Ah, and the Egypitian book covers. I remember those too lol. The picture books for the BoM stories I re-read after mom read them to us. Even the retelling was as gruesome as the first time around. Believing it was all true and not make believe because that's how it was taught as the gospel truth. We didn't challenge any of it back in those days. That would've made us "sons of perdition."

Ex-Sister Sinful Shoulders Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Did anyone else have ILLUSTRATED STORIES OF THE
> BOOK OF MORMON. ??? (Early 1970 ish?) My mother
> used those as bedtime stories for awhile when my
> younger brother and I were little. (Decapitation,
> hacked off limbs in battle, people drowning down
> river who let go of the iron rod...) Nightmares
> about the G.D. BoM. I wish I was kidding.

When we were still active and had a brood of little future tithe paying mormons, hubby's parents gave us the full set of those...he was the oldest child and we had their first grandchildren. Wish we still had them to show how efed up they are...unfortunately, we passed them onto one of hubby's siblings before we stopped believing in the morg.


> Remember when they had shiny "gold reformed
> Egyptian" book covers for the BoM in the 70's?
> Hahahahaha! =)

My parents had one of those. I asked a sister who was cleaning out their house after my dad passed away a year and a half ago if she saw it. She said yes and it is boxed up with a bunch of other old church books...That reminds me, I need to ask my mom if I can have them.

Imagine for a moment if someone had stood up and said:

“I agree! Man up and read the BOM! Read about how god commands the decapitation of an unconscious man in order to steal from that man.

Read about how dark skin is a curse from god to make them ugly to the righteous.

Read about the unbeliever who was cursed so he could not speak thrown out into the street where he was starved and trampled to death.

Read about the specific laws in the land that were in place to protect that man only to have the king threaten all unbelievers with that man’s fate if they did like him.

Read chapter after chapter plagiarized from the bible word for word.

Read about the impossible anachronisms, the angry god who destroys nations for unbelief and blesses the righteous with prosperity if they believe.

Read the book over and over until you get it.

Then you can finally put the book behind you and when anyone in the future tells you to “man up” to read the book you can stand up with a straight and honest face tell that man to go fuck himself and that reading the BOM doesn’t require manly actions by anyone. So yeah I agree with him.”



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2015 09:47AM by AmIDarkNow?.

Best way to read the BOM is to read it on the Skeptics Guide to the Book of Mormon. Funny stuff and really points out the fraud that it is.

Thanks for mentioning the Skeptics Guide to the BoM. I had not heard of it.

This is the place I found and it looks like it'll be fun to read!
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/1ne/1.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2015 05:53PM by seekyr.

I once made myself wade through the damn book just so I could say I had. There was nothing manly about that waste of time.

Well he can either "man up" by reading it if he wants to "dumb down" for doing so.

On other hand he can also "man up" by calling it a bluff and walking away (picture Rhett Butler.. as he leaves Scarlett in the stairwelll..)

As if reading goofy comics could make someone "a man."

You need to be a man to read the BOM? I thought you just needed a lobotomy.

I wonder how many mormon men have went to war and chopped off the arms of the enemy.

Get-togethers Will Bagley hit me up for a cab ride up the hill...

I don't remember why, but I got my cell phone out to put him in touch with my dad--they're also friends--the retired rocket scientist. It might've had to do with Mac computers; we all belong to the One-True-Church-of-the-One-Button-Mouse.

Most of the time he answers the phone, but my mother grabbed this one, perhaps recognizing my number, and Will was forced to identify himself... My mother also has a bad habit of answering the phone and then reaching for her hearing aid, so there was a bit of confusion...

He finally cleared things up (he's got a really distinctive voice, as many here know), asked for my dad, and my mother said, "Just a minute, he's reading the Book of Mormon." Pop, incidentally, is an unbeliever who's still technically an elder but hasn't paid a dime of tithing since before I was born.

Will didn't miss a beat: "What, is he having trouble sleeping?"

My dad admitted later that was the case.

Anyway, besides shamelessly stealing Mark Twain's material, our illustrious historian also has a wonderful synopsis of the BOM I heard on Radio West one time. It goes like something like this:

"So the Book of Mormon is the story of two groups of people, one of which was the Nephites. The Nephites were poor and righteous, but they worked hard and became prosperous. Unfortunately, they also became wicked when they became rich, so God smote them, and they became poor and righteous again. Then they became rich, and of course also evil, so God smote them again, and they became poor and righteous again."

<repeat>

I tried to read it, honest, but as far as making another attempt, fuggetaboutit...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2015 09:58PM by SL Cabbie.

I am unclear how reading the BoM, or any book, requires manliness.

I actually made it to page 3 once...just after Dad died and I was feeling a bit low...and then I thought to myself, I never once saw him read it (although he must have used it to construct his HC talks) and WTF am I doing reading it? So it went back on the shelf.

Ron Burr