My view is that once you feel you have got all life's answers and explanations through the teachings and doctrines of the Mormon church about pre existence,answers about life after death,and families reuniting and husbands and wives being United after death,and how God came to be god,you just forget about historical issues in whether you can prove the historical existence of the literal history portrayed in the Book of Mormon.Other issues like the Book of Abraham are the least of a Mormon persons concerns also.

Who would otherwise believe the Book of Mormon to be history?

They never learned the difference between deciding to believe what they want to believe and deciding to believe what evidence supports.

You must become as a little child. Although I don’t know of any little children who married other men’s wives after sending their husbands on missions.

They / We always say the Book of Mormon is TRUE. Now I ask:
What is true about the Book of Mormon?
1. The history - Linguists - ? - Nope we know 100% now it never happened
So what is left?

Listen for every member out there (Remember we are mostly ex TBMs), how do you feel about lying to your kids? How do you feel about teaching your kids a fraud?
I was in a leadership position and I decided to "Prove" to in-active members the validity of the BOM. I am in engineer so data and proof is everything to me. I failed to even prove the slightest truth about the BOM. We have all been tricked and brainwashed.

It's true in the sense that it's been printed an paper and you can heft it.

Isn't everything printed true?

Now that my comment has been published on the interwebs it's verily true.

I read it quite a bit, but I still could never say "I believe the book of mormon is true." Or is it the book of the church of Jesus Chris of latter-day-saints?

Once you're on the outside, it sure seems like a joke, doesn't it?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2019 11:39AM by cl2.

I loved fairy tales and history ever since I was old enough to read, so when I got older, it was easy for me to believe the Book of Mormon was a great combination of stories and history. There were troublesome little things though, like Laban losing his head over some plates, and others losing some arms over some sheep. But I loved (still do) the swashbuckling tales and movies of pirates, The Three Musketeers, and such, so I just pretty much ignored the gory parts in the Book of Mormon and accepted it as true.

I struggle with this question too. I can’t understand how my highly intelligent friend can just accept all of it with a smile and a nod. Any of my friends really who are still TBM. I feel like there has to be a moment where you go hmmm... I mean maybe it’s the comfort of it all so they write it off as a lack of faith if they question or maybe they write it off as any questions they have are due to human weakness and they have to just trust. I read the BOM several times but given a deep dive in church history, I can’t gain the testimony they have even though they are convinced one day I will.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2019 12:46AM by catholicrebel.

What’s wrong with trading your free agency for the security of a big lie?

Why did So Many people watch / love the Seinfeld Show?


It was Nothingness too!

Were they dropped on their head before the age of 3?

Did they eat too many carrots and not enough broccoli?

I know, one leg is shorter than the other!

Could it be they revere Ole Joey and everything in done write and done said.

Or, maybe they believe the BofM because they love Grandma and after all, she believed.

I just know I believe it is a wonder to me because I did not believe in this book ever. It was BORING as all get out, plus the storyline just seemed made-up, make-believe, you know, something that someone like ole Sleazy Joe borrowed and copied from other authors when I read some of those other books that were around then.

Plus, Ole Joey, with his reputation of conning others and all, just fit the bill....like he would enjoy doing this, see how many fools he could fool, see how many women he could convince of his abilities (I wrote a book!), and see how much money and power and prestige would trickle in as he advanced his scheme.

Hells bells, Joey let that book lead him to declare himself a King and even to toss that seer-stone-top-hat of his into the ring to run for Pres of the US of A. He mandated that if people believed in him and his book that they would be blessed in the now and after, and openly said that he was right up there with Jesus in what he could done do.

And, the crazy thing is people believed and, what's more, people still believe.

And, the only thing I know and am sure of about this whole cotton-pickin' mess, is that Ole Sleazy Joe was one Sleazy Conman. He was AMAZING at what he did. But, he was anything but amazing in the way he treated people. He was a sleazeball who used people, cheated people, tricked people, lied and lied some more to people, died having deaths of many people to answer to, abused teens and women for his own pleasure, and this is only the beginning of what he accomplished.

Yes, he could boast that with the lie that his book was the most correct book on earth. Yes, he could say that many "believed" his book.

And yes, people are still being duped

So, did I answer the why? No, I don't think so because I honestly do not see how people can say they believe in that book. But I can vouch for how people get conned by the cult into believing (because they so want to believe) in a wonderful life-after-death because I was also conned by that master of conmen, Sleazy Joe.

Yep, I too believed.

When I was a kid and hadn't actually read any of it for myself, I said I knew it was true just as everyone around me did. I mistakenly thought that the isolated parts I had heard happened to be the boring parts. I thought that once I read it in earnest, I would get to the interesting parts.

Once I was actively preparing for my mission in the months immediately preceding it, I read the B of M. The parts I had previously thought were the boring parts were actually the more interesting sections. The book as a whole was beyond terrible. It didn't even make enough sense to be declared either "true" or "untrue." What exactly does "true" mean in terms of a literary work, anyway? If it means that what was written in the book actually happened, obviously it's not true, but I had to read it to figure that out.

My take is that anyone who proclaims the truth of the Book of Mormon either has a great deal of stock in it being true or has never read it in its entirety.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2019 04:51PM by scmd1.

> When I was a kid and
> hadn't actually read
> any of it for myself,
> I said I knew it was
> true just as everyone
> around me did.


The book of mormon is absolutely true if that's what the current circumstances of your life require.

But I bet there are some who say it who would not pass a polygraph test regarding this alleged knowledge. But a lot of people would.

When I was a young lad, I believed in the people who told me it was true; they believed, so I believed.

And then I didn't...

>>But I bet there are some who say it who would not pass a polygraph test regarding this alleged knowledge. But a lot of people would.<<


A guy in my last ward who was a year older than I but in the same grade was the son of a complete bullshitter, and he, the son, had inherited considerable bullshitting tendencies himself. Before his mission, the guy would speak of the specifics of how he had obtained his testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and of all things LDS. I don't remember exactly, but it supposedly happened in a corn field in which he was working.

When he returned from his mission, he told in his homecoming talk (one of my parents recorded it on cassette and sent it to me when I was on my mission) of actually having acquired his testimony on his mission. He knelt to pray next to his bed, and someone very important appeared to him to tell him it was all true. I don't remember if it was Joseph Smith, Jesus himself, fod the Father, or a lesser being, but it was quite dramatic, and it all happened in Australia on his mission.

The only problem was that his audience was the same ward who had already heard roughly once a month from the time the guy was fourteen until he turned nineteen about the dramatic cornfield testimony experience. I guess everyone was just supposed to forget about that when he testified regarding whatever dead being appeared to him next to his bed in Australia.

I know there are people who are so caught up in their fantasies or lies (they truly are lies, but at some point the lies become de facto reality to such people) that they might be able to pass polygraphs concerning them, but I never knew whether this guy was just a really good liar or if he eventually believed his own lies.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2019 10:56PM by scmd1.

> Who believe[s] the Book of Mormon to be history?

Only dummies (those) who don't like, need, know, or care about history, facts, truth, etc.

People (Mormons) who think they have found the truth usually stop looking.

LDS FOOLS followers to think they have found something... when they have found NOTHING.

It's a Shallow 'religion'
NOT TOO DEEP. Not real!
Real fool of invisibility.
Nothing questioning.
Nothing of value.
Nothing of note.

There is SIMPLY Nothing There.
Followers following followers.
Nobody LEADING. NOBODY.

While I'm not in any way suggesting it's quality leadership that the organization has, nor do I think the membership is being led in any productive direction, I would have to respectfully disagree with the assertion that no one is leading. Wendy and Russ are certainly not followers. They're also not following any God or Jesus in my opinion, but that's a subject for another day.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2019 04:17PM by scmd1.

There’s a Mormon* born every minute.

* Or whatever they call themselves these days.

Because it's packaged with a show. And it's an impressive show. And the cast members really like you, and want you to enjoy the show.

The book is kind of there. Few would join if that was it. Most mouth the words of the book. But they experience the show.

It sounds like the Bible to some people and they can't believe that an uneducated young man from upstate New York could have written it.

As a vulnerable teenager in the 70's, the missionaries assured me that there was archaeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon. So did many of the members. I soundly believed that until the internet age hit and I had the courage to do the research. At the same time, the DNA evidence hit me in the face. My life and money, wasted on the wrong church... Also, the Book of Mormon is simpler to read and understand than the Bible. Bible followers have all kinds of "literal versus allegory" arguments. But we could rest assured the the Book of Mormon is all literal! No allegory in sight! Nowadays, many Mormons believe that the B of M is all allegory, since it has been proven by DNA, Archaeology, and Linguistics to be false as history.

Absolutely. And that is the bottom line. You cannot get around it. There are no amount of feelings nor prayers that will change the facts. People are just too much of a coward to call a spade a spade.