Apparently this year's theme for "Come, Follow Me" is the Book of Mormon, complete with new study books.

We ended up sitting in the pew a little too long after SM and my wife thought it would be nice to sit in on Sunday School, which was setting up its visual aids in front of the podium.

This first lesson was "Introductory Pages of the Book of Mormon". It was the usual BS we've heard before about how the BoM was not written, but was translated/transcribed through Joseph Smith.

There was also much ado made about nothing over the three and eight witnesses, whose collective testimonies are included in the front of BoM. The people attending the class were all very moved by the witness accounts and how brave they must have been to attach their names to this "bold" proclamation.

There was already much dabbing of the teary eye, but there was outright blubbering when the teacher told of how Joseph Smith, after the three witnesses affair, plopped himself down between his parents and declared, “You do not know how happy I am: the Lord has now caused the plates to be shown to three more besides myself. They have seen an angel, who has testified to them, and they will have to bear witness to the truth of what I have said, for now they know for themselves, that I do not go about to deceive the people, and I feel as if I was relieved of a burden which was almost too heavy for me to bear, and it rejoices my soul that I am not any longer to be entirely alone in the world.”

Seriously, people were crying. I could hear sniffling behind me, see people wiping their eyes in front of me, and the teacher had to stop several times while reading the Joseph Smith's statement. I had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing.

I was a little surprised my wife didn't ask what I thought of the lesson on the way home. Perhaps she knew exactly what I was thinking and didn't want to take the chance that I would say exactly how willfully gullible active members are.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2020 10:02AM by GregS.

or the witnesses or JS. They are showing how spiritual and holy they are when they do this. I'm shocked at how they post about things on fb that, to me, would be things I'd keep to myself as a mormon.

This is the difference I see in how I saw my beliefs and how my daughter sees her's. She didn't read the "mormony" part of my cousin's husband's book about getting kidnapped in Chihuahua, Mexico, and I did, but then just after she told me that, she posted one of the scriptures she read that morning.

It is a contest to see who is the most spiritual and they don't want anyone to outdo them.

Joseph Smith, that poor little dear.

I had to skim a couple of old Ensign articles on the temple for something I'm writing, and one of them (by Packer, I think) said something about Joe having to move from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois because "persecutions and difficulties arose." To Mormons, Smith is a one-dimensional being: completely innocent and pure, swept by the vagaries of Satan acting through frontier yokels who inexplicably hated the church. They've been fed this BS from apostles and church presidents (sorry, they aren't prophets) for almost 200 years.

The witnesses, by their own admission, never *saw* anything. Smith never produced the plates or even one scrap of evidence that they were a physical object that existed. Modern scholarship has proven he had no ability to translate ancient languages. He was murdered by a group of jilted men for having his way with their wives, not martyred for his faith. Everything Mormons think they know about him is a lie.

In the name of Jeezy Creezy, amen.

This used to be a thing in F&T in my ward. There were several who regularly got up, did the fake cry, and went on about how that "poor sweet innocent boy" sacrificed himself and allowed himself to be martyred and how deeply touched they were yadda yadda yadda.

It became a very popular thing to do for a while.

Nobody ever fake cried for Jesus that I recall. Hmmmnnnn .

So, I never heard as a kid that the witnesses only got to feel up the plates or that the tar and feathering were for Joseph's sexual misconduct, or that Joseph was convicted of glass looking, or that Joseph . . .

The only time I cried over the Book of Mormon was when I used it to prop up the leg of my washing machine, which made it spin so erratically that it damaged the sheetrock.

I think Mormons tear dabbing over Joseph's Myth is too much. Me thinks they protest to much. It's like they have to prove to one another that this scoundrel is not a scoundrel. They fight cognitive dissonance within themselves so much, this outpouring of emotion is crazy.

When I was an active member, I was just as gullible as these people are.

For example, I never knew that all of the witness's signatures were signed by Oliver Cowdrey, not they themselves.

I didn't know that JS used a rock in his hat to "translate".

I don't recall ever crying over the Book of Mormon; in fact, I thought that if it were ever made into a movie, it would probably have to be X-rated.

It's like "group hysteria". People will do things with a group, that they wouldn't ordinarily do, otherwise.

I wonder if a lot of this crying was nostalgic weeping. The Mormons are "coming home", back to their beloved Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. They have been off the track with all that borader Bible and Jesus stuff, but now they are back on familiar ground, back in their narrow, intimate, exclusive little cult.

"Spiritual eyes"
"Verified in a dream"
"Translated"
"Not for profit"

"The Witnesses" were relatives and friends who were personally invested in the BOM being accepted by dupes.

Yeah, Mormons have their own definition of things in their closed little world.

My Mormon daughter and her RM Mormon husband are in their thirties, and very much in tune with their generation. They have not been to the temple since they were married. My daughter did not like the temple ceremony--it made her cry in disappointment--but they loved thir reception and the rest of it. My daughter is an atheist, at heart, but her husband has a high calling. They have agreed to go to church every other Sunday, and she has a Primary calling every other Sunday, alternating with another mom of her generation. The RM husband skips church to watch football games, and doesn't force his family to go when they don't want to go. They do not attend church when they are on vacations or weekend trips. They are close and involved with their kids schools and sports, and are NOT supportive of the cult's lame new youth micromanagement and brainwashing program, and I doubt if they will ever follow through with the idea of indctrinating their kids at home. They do not kneel in family prayer, have blessings before meals or at bedtime, etc. They are in the cult for the husband's fanatic TBM parents and for the rest of their large extended family, and also for his great career in a Mormon-owned, Mormon-operated corporation of another name. Many of their Mormon peers are in the same situation. Some of their Mormon peers have started a splinter group, which is supposed to be "liberal", but we strongly suspect that this is just another covert, Mormon-controlled ploy to keep that generation from leaving in droves.

Sorry to digress--but I do not see my daughter and husband going to even one of those BOM Sunday school classes. When my daughter told me about the new year's schedule, she said that they were planning on skipping part of the 2 hours. Now I know why!

Thanks for your information, GregS. I am not willing to endure church, to find out what's going on, and I can't mention religion to my daughter and her husband, for fear they will shun me.

The mind is a terrible thing...I just remembered something the teacher said that almost made me lose it.

As she was lovingly describing the gift of translation that was given to Joseph Smith, the teacher asked, "Can you imagine how Joseph Smith must have felt as he translated the passage where it was foretold that the church would be restored by Joseph, son of Joseph, as it dawned on him that this divine work was referring to him?"

Seriously? Somebody would have to be seriously delusional to ask that with a little tear in the eye.

Odd feeling I just had reading this thread. I remember being TBM and so defensive of JS and the morg. When I first heard of the polyandry, I was in a state of shock for like 2 weeks. I couldn't tell anyone what I learned. Then, when I first talked about it to my dad (jackal mormon), I felt so odd, out of place. I continued digging through scriptures and church approved places to find anything to exonerate JS from such a disturbing practice. The more I searched, the worse it looked for JS.

The damage this has caused my mind i'll never fully understand. It sure sucks to believe so passionately and then have the rugged pulled out from under you.

Of course, the next horrible damaging thing to occur was the family backlash. Amazing how people can be so irrational? I bring obvious facts to the table like the Rosetta Stone and I just get mocked and told that I am closed minded. LOL, me??? Closed minded???

Just like the 80's song by Golden Earring, Twilight Zone.

Lyrics:

Somewhere in a lonely hotel room
There's a guy starting to realize
That he's eternal fate has turn it's back on him
It's two A.M.
It's two a.m. (It's two a.m.)
The fear has gone (The fear has gone)
I'm sittin' here waitin' (I'm sittin' here waitin')
The gun still warm (The gun still warm)
Maybe my connection is tired of takin' chances
Yeah there's a storm on the loose, sirens in my head
I'm wrapped up in silence, all circuits are dead
I cannot decode, my whole life spins into a frenzy
Help I'm steppin' into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse,
Feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go, now that I've gone too far?
Soon you will come to know,
When the bullet hits the bone
Soon you will come to know,
When the bullet…

"I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified." Mark Twain

https://www.the-american-catholic.com/2013/10/11/mark-twain-reviews-the-book-of-mormon/

Interesting on Mark Twain - from a site one might not expect.