At some point in your life, you bought into the CoJCoLdS, and probably for a combination of reasons that were personal to you. During that time of investigation and new belief, you opened and read that essential text, the Book of Mormon. What was your reaction, your feelings?

Did anybody tell you that reading it would improve your life in some way? Two other cults make this claim (Scientology--"Dianetics" & Christian Science -- "Science & Health"). I think they're horribly wrong, but I can at least make sense of their claims. But was the BoM ever promoted to you as being therapeutic in some way?

My husband was a convert and he said that first of all, he didn't believe the JS first vision story, mainly because he grew up Catholic and none of the canonized saints had ever claimed to see God. He also didn't believe JS because every time a teenager opens his mouth, it's a lie. :D
As for The Book of Mormon, he said it seemed very confusing and convoluted; the series of events doesn't have a smooth flow. He said the thing that bothered him the most were the parts that were directly copied from the KJV of the bible. Plus, it was so boring.

Mormons just tell each other what they like to hear. I doubt most Mormons read the Book of Mormon. The church is mostly about social dynamics.

There are people in the church you like to socialize with or maybe someone you have a romantic relationship with. If there are no social bonds most people go inactive or leave.

This is the big problem the church is facing. How to retain members when the original product sucks. The church has doubled down on early brainwashing since entertaining the young members doesn’t translate into retention. That’s what Treck and lowering the mission age is all about. I doubt it will work either.

valkyriequeen Wrote:
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> My husband was a convert and he said that first of
> all, he didn't believe the JS first vision story,
> mainly because he grew up Catholic and none of the
> canonized saints had ever claimed to see God.

Maybe not God the Father, but plenty saw God the Son - the Vision of the Sacred Heart by St ?Theresa. And the BVM

Von Däniken wrote a little remembered book in which he connected Catholic visions with alien visitations. Fatima has the hallmarks of a UFO incident and the original BVM sighting described a small androgynous being of under five foot.

I was given various passages to read, that seemed to apply to me in my life, and gave me hope when I was desperate and depressed. Before that I thought Mormonism was a load of rubbish and the JS story sounded ridiculous. I was told it was all true or all fake. It was the classic, if you get good feelings whilst reading this book, JS was a prophet of god. It was a leap i took due the emotions I felt when reading it. It gave me hope. It promised answers to everything. That was all.

My first reaction was, "This is the most pretentious piece of garbage I've laid eyes on since reading the junior high school dress standards manual."

The names were very obviously not derived from any language I had ever studied (and I've studied a few.) The situations were contrived. The narrative was stilted and very dry.

The mishies claimed to get their daily dose of spiritual high from a daily reading of the BoM every morning. I remember wondering why it didn't give them severe depression - or at the very least, lethargy.

I got as far as II Nephi - and I tried. I really did. The only character who had any depth was Korihor, whom I liked (as a character) and was told that he was a very BAAAD dude.

Overall, I didn't care for it one bit.

Reminds me of the old joke.

Three veterans are swapping tales.

The first gets out a serviceman's book of mormon and says.
"I kept this over my heart. A bullet hit the back, went in 2/3 of the way and stopped. Saved my life."

The second says "look at my book of mormon. I also kept it over my heart. The bullet entered the front, went 1/3 of the way and stopped. I wonder why the difference?"

The third said. "That's easy. Both bullets stopped at the words of Isaiah in 2nd Nephi. Nothing gets past that!"

I hadn't heard that one. Thanks for the giggle. I needed it today.

The usual punchline is nothing gets through the Book of Alma.

I don’t know. Reading about beheadings, cutting off limbs, rape and cannibalism seems to get me spiritually charged in the morning to face the rest of the day.

First reaction: I thought it was really boring and repetitive. I used the BoM as a sleeping aid.

I also didn't like all the violence, especially when Laban's head was chopped off and later when Ammon sliced off the arms of the enemy during battle. Was that really necessary?

It is interesting (I think) to note that the Wikipedia version of Laban's murder at the hand of Nephi only explains that Laban was killed with his own sword. No mention of beheading. Is the Mormon church already trying to whitewash it?

I was a very motivated investigator. I plowed through it quickly because I wanted to move to the next step. I therefore remembered none of it. Except the shortest passage - my father dwelt in a tent.

I find it interesting that my nonmo boyfriend knows more about the stories in the bofm than I do. He read it once as he felt if he was going to live in Utah (in the 1970s was the first time he lived here), he needed to know about mormons. He will ask my daughter questions about the bofm just to see if she knows her religion. She always has to look it up.

I obviously didn't read for meaning as I read it many times.

The one thing that hit me when thinking about your question is that when they tell you to read the scriptures--especially the bofm--that it has all the answers, I always thought it was reading certain passages, not learning from the stories in the bofm. I used to open it and just read a few scriptures to find answers especially going through the gay experiences.

I read it because I was supposed to and I never got anything out of it. I can't imagine someone investigating the church and reading that thing and finding a belief in mormonism through it (or in any fashion). I was always doubtful that my friends and boyfriends who were nonmormon would ever convert.

I first read it as a teenager. I liked the Friberg paintings.

Farmer Westgate Wrote:
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> I first read it as a teenager. I liked the Friberg
> paintings

Everyone in them paintings look like juicers. Nephi and Moroni surely we’re taking steroids to be that buffed.

I was at a point in my life where I wanted to know which church was the most correct. Unfortunately, the Mormons came to our door and came right out and made this their focus. Saying that they were the most correct church on the earth seemed like an answer to prayer. The missionaries just pulled out the scriptures that reinforced this teaching and I was hooked. I didn't actually read the BofM until I took a BofM class at BYU. As I read it I didn't get much out of it. When I went to class the next day the teacher would explain everything so I had the impression I understood it when I actually was just going along and thinking I was too dumb to understand.

Maybe you were just too pooped when you tried to read it.

I thought , does it have anything in it but "It cme to pass.....".....???????

I didn’t really read the Book of Mormon until right before my mission. I found it a tedious read and ridiculous. That Jaredite barge story being a good example.

Oddly enough the Book of Mormon does warn us about seedy underground operations called Secret Combinations. I always liked that bit.

Pooped wrote -

"I was at a point in my life where I wanted to know which church was the most correct. Unfortunately, the Mormons came to our door and came right out and made this their focus. Saying that they were the most correct church on the earth seemed like an answer to prayer..."

This was my experience too and I fell for it hook,line and sinker. However as far as the book of Mormon went, it didn't go anywhere with me. I thought it was the most boring, badly written crapulous book I had ever attempted to read and I had been a voracious reader since the age of four.

Despite this, I somehow managed to convince myself (even after my ex-communication), that Joe's vision was real and the Mormon Church was indeed the restored Church of Jesus Christ in these latter days. This belief lasted for several years until I had to assist with an "emergency" electro-convulsive-therapy on a lovely young man who insisted that he had seen God and Jesus and had a message for mankind but no-one would listen to him.

I remember standing there thinking that if the book of Mormon was full of crap then Joseph Smith was probably full of it too, and if he'd been around in the 1980's then Mormonism might have been zapped out of existence before it began. That was the moment I realised I had never sincerely believed at all.

Mormonism appealed to me because they had an answer for everything, supposedly. Christianity presented too many unanswered questions for me to be able to believe. Like, the trinity which everyone answers with non sensical answers which are like the non answers of politicians. I was then told the BoM was completely true or completely false. So I was already emotionally invested in hoping it was true. BoM passages exploit this (and likewise the missionaries used similar passage from the NT) saying hope was the first step in faith. So these steps in brainwashing were labelled as virtuous.
Interesting that the BoM promise by moroni tells people to ask god if it is ‘not’ true, not if it IS true. Part of the brainwashing technique?
Then there were passages near the beginning about family and the tree of life. I’d been told to apply everything I read to my own life. These passages hit home as I was estranged from my family. It gave me hope, basically. Unfortunately mormonism in the long run is responsible for messing up my family more than ever, and I’m back to square one!
The nice feelings I had during the investigation period when with the missionaries or reading the BoM I was told was the spirit telling me it was all true. Shame that I didn’t have the internet in 1997. Of course I was gonna feel good; I was in an abusive relationship and had a baby to look after and no money, and no family support. Anything would have felt good in comparison to the difficult situation I couldn’t escape from. The book of mormon is so obviously a load of rubbish, but it offered me an escape, and so i took that leap of “faith” and I embraced it. Or in other words, I was ripe for brainwashing. My parents came to my baptism and my mother said “you DO know you’re probably being brainwashed don’t you?”. No such response when my brother accepted it; my mother thought it must be great if he thought it was.