When I was young, people had to read the BoM, Talmage's book about The Life of Christ and they had to read the book A Marvellous Work and Wonder, If they got that far and it took quite awhile you knew they were converted. They also had to attend church too. These people joinned, stayed with the church and became the strength of the Church,

Back then we had great Sunday School manuals written by Bension on the Teachings of Christ, etc. It was great being a young teenager as you had wonderful new colorful Sunday School manuals every year. It was big thing to wonder what what your new Sunday School manual would be like. Same with the Priesthood manual, A new one every year, for the boys and the men. The Relief Society had their own little book mailed out once a month. We had the Improvement Era a monthly church publication with articles by the intellectuals of the church.
You could learn and it was exciting.

Talks at Church had depth and meaning. People quoted articles from what they read and pondered.

Then something happened in around the 80's. The Church stopped publishing manuals as Ballard said "it was too expensive for wards and families to buy these manuals." He said "we will use the scriptures." "Costs for a family would be reduced." He said the brethren and the scholars were going to cut back on their writing of books as it was too costly for families to buy them. This was all about saving money. (I was on the High Councel when Ballard came and talked to use about this).

They did this for awhile and now the Church owned book store is all about Church leaders selling their books and other junk. What happened to saving money? look at what yiu can buy at The Chucrh Distribution Center. All the Church has done is elimate the scolars and made the GS'a book the prime source of book buying.

The Ensign has no depth, no meat like the Era did.

I believe that this has happened for the following reasons:

1) It was taking too long to convert people according to Ballard. The church wanted to look like it was a fast growing Church. Can't have people take a year to read, ponder and question can we? Waste of time according to Ballard. They can do that after they are baptised.

2) They did not want people to have an intellectual appreciation for the gospel nor go through the process of critical thing. Hence, now days, just read a few scriptures from the BoM to know it is true.Ask a prayer and your on you way to eternal life even if you know nothing about it.

3) Back then they had to give up completely coffee, tea, booze and smokes to show their inner commitment. Today inner commitment is not a standard, just numbers of baptism.

4) The Church wants to focus on masses of people who have a lower reading ability and lower critical thinking skills just to get them "converted" (?????) and baptised and the numbers up. They are trying to make the gospel easy.

5) The church is relying on the older members who are converted to pull the church along. They don't give a piece of crap about these members as long as they pay and obey.

6) Just like the US and Canadian Education system, the Church has watered down the Sunday School lessons for kids and adults, that way they not have to deal with issues and conflict with what the manuals say.

7) Everything is done for the Church or Corporation now, not the individual. Try talking to missionaries. Their is no depth of discussion.

So yes the intellectuals have gone. So have the skills associated with reading their writings.

More and more deep thinkers are leaving. The church no longer challenges them with profound thought, even if those profundities were flawed, anyway. It's a game of follow-the-leader now, and Mormons are told to follow them even if they lead you into the sewer.

The church is forced to fish the waters of the poorly educated and the truly ignorant in lands where there is no computer or Internet penetration. As far as the numbers game is concerned, 1000 superstitious members gained in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of Congo, are better than 50 educated people in the US or Canada.

Nowadays, sitting for three hours listening to the watery pap they feed you across the pulpit will turn your brains first into Wheatena, then into Pablum. At the Pablum stage, one is ripe to go on a senior mission.

!!!F E A R !!!

Observe what's happened when MoProfits stray beyond 'milk':

BY: Blood Atonement, Adam-God; monogamy is EVIL, Racism is GOOD.
JS waffled about slavery, Peterson says that Negroes can have a Cadillac if they can afford one...

case CLOSED (or are their others???)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2011 03:48PM by guynoirprivateeye.

made the move to the mainstream.

There was a time when the church was for the most part isolated in the west. The majority of people who heard these words of profound importance were too invested in it to leak it out to the gentile world.

With the advent of the internet the church has shot itself in the foot with the information that got out during the Arrington years, and the renewed interest in church history due to Hoffmans work. It has also proven to the whole world that it has millions of skeletons in its closet, and that some of those skeletons are the sermons of its own founding prophets.

The leaders recognize that they can no longer whip out any old statement to only the preferred audience. Their words are out for all to see and scrutinize.

By limiting the gospel to only safe topics and general reminders they have done two things- first and intentionally they seek to make the church attractive to outsider, and secondly but not intentionally they have admitted that they have little that is unique and that most of their former unique teachings were indeed useless and false.

To rid itself of ridicule, it needs to refrain from making statements that cannot stand. Thus proving against the notion of Prophets at its head.

That's why they have long since stopped "speaking by the spirit."

OBEDIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone once wrote that you can easily evaluate any organization on it's real mission.

Just look at what it rewards and, more significantly, what it punishes.

When you drill down into today's Mormonism, this is what still matters:

Revenue stream, hence:

Members must stay, pay, and say what is Church-approved.

That's it. Don't believe in Jesus or Moroni? That's ok. Many of admitted we didn't believe, only to be startled by the PH interviewing us to admit he didn't believe either!


Anagrammy

The dogma is just filler anyways. What the church really wants is obedience to the leadership, money, and survival of the organization. Basically they only change the teachings or sweep them under the rug if they endanger the survival of the organization. So when something becomes too offensive or dated, it's time for a change of policy or even a new revelation.

I have a theory on this, in the Book of Mammon he talks about how they had to dumb it down for 3rd world countries because of literacy rates. Since the U.S. immigrant rate is so high, and climbing higher every year, maybe they've dumbed it down for everyone now?