I grew up Mormon and attended my indoctrination sessions in the sixties, many moons ago. I was taught these things:

There was a war in heaven, and people who were born white and Mormon had been the most valiant warriors in the service of God. People born black were lazy “fence sitters” who didn’t fight. Those who actively fought on Lucifer’s side are demons now and all around us. We can’t see them, but they can enter our heads and wreak havoc if we let down our guard and stop reading the Book of Mormon or attending services.

Christopher Columbus was selected before he was born to find a safe place for Mormonism, which is God’s only true church.

All churches but Mormonism are false and “of the devil.”

Polygamy is the normal state of marriage and will be practiced in the afterlife, but only Mormons will be allowed to be married. (only Mormons will have sex in Heaven, all others will be neutered.)

Coca Cola is an addictive substance, and it’s a sin to drink it.

Jesus never drank wine, only grape juice.

Joseph Smith used a pair of spectacles from the Old Testament to translate the Gold Plates. He read it one gold page at a time like a book.

American Indians were the remnant of Jewish sailors. Their skin had been darkened due to their sins. They killed every single white Christian in America.

Hill Cumorah was in New York and had tons of gold under it. “Wagon loads,” as Brigham Young said.

Everything Brigham Young and Joseph Smith said was the word of God, not opinions.

The gospel of Mormonism is perfect and requires no adjustments.

Dinosaurs never existed on Earth, and evolution is a lie invented by atheist scientists to hurt Jesus. The Earth is six thousand years old.

All Book of Mormon and Bible stories are literally the truth and historical. The Bible may have been meddled with some (darn Catholics), but the Book of Mormon is perfect.

Someday all Mormons will walk to Jackson county, Missouri to build the New Jerusalem for the return of Jesus. This would happen in my lifetime, certainly.

I wonder how many Mormons believe any of this doctrine now? I dropped out in the early seventies, so this is how I remember Mormonism. I don’t think it’s practiced anymore. All the members are apostates compared to just fifty years ago.

In addition I was taught in the same era that the Lamanites were the Primary ancestors of the Native Americans. That the Lamanites would bloom as a rose in the desert and their skin would whiten.

The only doctrine you mentioned. That the earth is 6000 years old was never taught in my neck of the woods. We were taught that each "day" was a period of undetermined time.

I remember all that. Most of it was unofficial popular doctrine.But in those days you wouldn't know the difference.You had to admit it though class discussions were a lot more fun.

If you were to show this list to a young Mormon today, they'd think you made most of it up. If you showed it to an older Mormon, they'd wiggle out of it by saying that these things were never "official" doctrine.

People have said that trying to determine official Mormon doctrine is like trying to nail Jello to a tree, but some things can't be denied. Some things on your list are scriptural: 6000 year old earth is in the D&C. All other churches being false, and an abomination is in JSH in the PoGP. Christopher Columbus' foreordination is in the BoM. The idea that blacks were less valiant was declared to be doctrine by the First Presidency in the late 1940s.

Some of it was Mormon folklore. The grape juice theory is just laughable. Some laughable things were taken very seriously. When I was a teenager, there was a girl in my ward who always had a unused pair of shoes that she had ready for the walk to Missouri.

+CrispingPin:
“Some things on your list are scriptural: 6000 year old earth is in the D&C. All other churches being false, and an abomination is in JSH in the PoGP. Christopher Columbus' foreordination is in the BoM. The idea that blacks were less valiant was declared to be doctrine by the First Presidency in the late 1940s.”

==Can you tell me where these things are located if it is not too much trouble to ask?

“When I was a teenager, there was a girl in my ward who always had a unused pair of shoes that she had ready for the walk to Missouri.”

==Was that a requirement or she was just a nut?


~~~~iceman9090

The 6000 years comes from Doctrine and Covenants section 77:5-7. Section 77 is Joe's explanation of the book of Revelation. He said that the earth has a temporal existence of 6000 years.

The girl that always had an extra pair on unused shoes was probably the nuttiest member of a fairly nutty family. Her family dynamic was unique, to say the least. Her father was frequently away on "business trips." I found out years later that he actually had two separate families in two different cities. I don't know if the two families knew about each other.

She may have been a bit unique, but many of us who were Mormon teens in the 1970s expected to grab handcarts and walk to Missouri at some point during our lives.

All churches being false comes from the "official" version of Joseph Smith's first vision (Joseph Smith History in the Pearl of Great Price). When Joe asked Jesus what church to join, Jesus said that all churches were corrupt, and an abomination in his sight.

In 1949, the First Presidency issued an official statement that reaffirmed that the denial of temple and the priesthood to blacks. "The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality."

You still would be hearing the same "we don't teach that or it was never official doctrine" affirmation of those views. Thinking members would challenge the veracity of some of those claims and would be asked to not participate or go elsewhere. That's what happened to my Dad and another group of evil dissenters.

Older members not only grasped and held onto to those views, but fully indoctrinated the primary and youth. You were taught that those claims were indeed part of the mormon gospel.

Anything taught in church is doctrine. Look up the definition of doctrine. Mormons are weasels and liars.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/2020 10:57AM by donbagley.

I concur

"Coca Cola is an addictive substance, and it’s a sin to drink it."
You can cleanse CocaCola by adding a generous amount of Jamaican Rum!

I remember most of these things. Some I probably just don't remember. I didn't remember Kolob until coming to this board.

Most of the younger generations wouldn't recognize the church we grew up in like my daughter.

When I told her that God was actually the father of Jesus, that he came down and had "sex" with Mary, she didn't believe me, so I asked one of my well mormon educated friends and she said, "You're correct."

I was about 11 years old when a member of the bishopric was in our SS class and he told us that "know" meant they had sex and it says something about "know" in the story about Jesus. I remember being in SHOCK that the guy would tell us that. He never used the word sex, but WE KNEW what he meant by how he said it.

Have they actually dropped the '..Catholic church was the great whore of the earth...' line?

+donbagley:
“Dinosaurs never existed on Earth, and evolution is a lie invented by atheist scientists to hurt Jesus. The Earth is six thousand years old (6000 y).”

==I am curious. Was this a common position in mormonism 100 y ago? 50 y ago? 20 y ago? How about now?

From my understanding, the catholics are the only group where the master leader said “Yes, the Big Bang theory is acceptable. Genesis never happened.“ There are some orthodox christians that more or less accept science.
There seems to be a massive group in the USA that calls themselves young earth creationists.

~~~~iceman9090

1) Does the church, via its manuals and proclamations, state these things explicitly? Answer: No.

2) Do most Mormons believe these things and teach them to the youth in Seminary and Sunday School? Answer: without a doubt.

Now you see why it's so hard to delineate Mormon doctrine.

Anything taught over the pulpit is doctrine, all of it.

The earth is 6,000 years old since the creation, though how long the creation itself took is a little vague. True Believers "know" that was another 6,000 years, because a day is a thousand years long on Kolob, God's HQ.

The Noah flood story actually happened as written. Adam was real, as was the garden. Both in Jackson County, MO. There was no death prior to Adam.

That's all hard-coded in Mormon scripture. The dinosaur bones coming from other planets is a derivative conclusion. If there was no death before Adam, and the earth is only 6,000 years old since the fall of Adam, then dinosaur bones obviously came from somewhere other than earth, and were brought here. Mormons think this totally obvious.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/2020 12:51PM by Brother Of Jerry.

+Brother Of Jerry:
“The earth is 6,000 years old since the creation, though how long the creation itself took is a little vague.”

==In terms of science, IDGAF (I don’t give) about how long creation took. This is still YEC.
The age of the Earth determined via multiple radiometric dating methods points to 4.56 Gy + or – 0.01 Gy.

Humans and animals coming from 1 male and 1 female is not possible. It is a genetic restriction.
Noah boat thing, same deal. It is a genetic restriction. It is a ecological disaster.

“The dinosaur bones coming from other planets”

==But there aren’t just dinosaurs. There are multiple ancient times periods with a variety of ecosystems. I guess mormons think all that came from another planet.

~~~~iceman9090

Mormons are by definition anti-intellectual. Everything you're saying here demonstrates their opposition to intellect and reason.

Resin grapes were table centerpieces for good RS sisters. They were absolutely perfectly round and uniform and boring. The perfect Mormon metaphor.

Food storage was a ward competitive sport, as was "submitting family group sheets" (genealogy records)

Drinking powdered milk proved you were a good person.

Owning a wheat grinder proved you were a better person.

Texturized vegetable protein (TVP) could be made into "ham salad" with copious amounts of mayo and pickle relish. Not quite as unpalatable as the powdered milk.

Powdered milk, TVP. My mother put TVP in her meatloaf and I refused to eat it. I put gravy on my potatoes and you could taste it in the gravy. We weren't much for food storage at our house, but she'd buy into these things when she was in the R.S. That TVP ended up being tossed.

We were one of the families in the ward who was instructed to eat from our food storage for a week. My mom gave me money for a milk "card" at school and a girl from my ward said that wasn't going along withe rules. We were in 3rd grade.

My Mom was an easy mark for buying into the mormon mlm scams. So we had a ton of food storage and it became a problem when my Dad finally realized that Mom was dumping more $$$ into stuff that was never going to be used. So when my Mom felt pressed by my Dad for wasteful spending then we started using the stuff.

I distinctly remember the day Mom announced that she would no longer be buying milk from the grocery store and a fresh jug of powdered milk would be available in the fridge. I never warmed up to the taste or texture of the stuff. Pouring it on cereal made it worse. Everyone in my house abstained from drinking powdered milk. My Dad was a big time milk drinker and he couldn't stand it either.

I finally did the deed. Not only did I throw out the jug (which was rancid because nobody was touching it) I also lugged the giant 50 pound bucket/pail out back. I found a spot with a lot of pine needles and dumped it and promptly raked the needles to hide the scourge. Later when it rained, it greatly stunk and my Dad couldn't figure out the source of foulness :D The greatest risk was finding a spot to stash the empty bucket until my Dad burned the trash pile.

When it finally dawned on my Mom that her powdered milk jug had disappeared, she blamed my Dad. They had a big quarrel and she just started buying milk again.

TVP, powdered milk, grinding wheat...

Awwwwwww!!!! Now I’m triggered.

My parents gave up on the powdered milk after we kids just wouldn’t drink it. There was a good dairy not far away so we always had fresh milk. The powdered milk got used for homemade yogurt, which I refused to eat.

We did consume loads of TVP and it was nasty. The fake bacon bits weren’t bad and we would snack on those sometimes. Actually, the dry TVP “kibble” itself was okay for an occasional crunchy snack too.

Grinding our own wheat was iffy. Fresh homemade bread is nice, but the loaves were only partially risen and were quite dense. Hot, with butter (well, margarine) it was enjoyable. I’m sure that with some know how we could have done a better job with the bread.

Hot cracked wheat cereal was passable with a big dollop of honey and some milk. Not my favorite, but not horrifying.

On the bright side, all of the fiber and plant based food may have cancelled out the massive amounts of hydrogenated fats and sugar we consumed back then.

Dinosaurs never existed on Earth, and evolution is a lie invented by atheist scientists to hurt Jesus. The Earth is six thousand years old.
-----------------------------

I heard this one from time to time - early 60's and even later.
Did not believe it as it made no sense.

Then went through the Salt Lake Temple while in the mission home in SLC. Dinosaurs painted on the wall murals in the Temple - think it was the World Room.

When I asked about it in the upper room with GA's present for our questions was told "some things have not been fully revealed yet".

The eternal brush off - just another variation of "not pertinent to your salvation"...

Even as a nevermo, I was familiar with most of these beliefs but the Christopher Columbus teaching is a new one. I had never heard of this before and I find it unbelievably hilarious!!

Thank you for this,donbagley, it gave me a much-needed smile :)

Just get a copy of "The Restored Church" by William E. Berrett. It was our seminary text book in the mid-1960's. It has all the stuff you're listing above as doctrines and beliefs of the Mormons. By reading it, you'd recognize that today we're talking about a completely different church.

Yes, my father had that very book!

I moronically joined the mormon crime syndicate as a lonely 16 yr old in the early 1980's. I heard much of the same stuff over the next few years.

I did not hear much before I was ready for the meat.

As you mentioned, most of this has gone to the ash heap of history.

A few die hard Mormons still adhere to this stuff.

Unfortunately, I did not do much until I was married with several children.

Most of the current weird unofficial mormon doctrine today seems to be largely political.

The mormon church let's people make up things and teach those things from the pulpit as docterine as long as certain core beliefs are not threatened. Then the church leaders say it was never church docterine. It starts with general authorities who make up the most outlandish things. Then people follow the example of their church leaders and do the same thing. For example, Brigham Young taught that Adam is god. Paul Dunn made up false war hero stories. The members make up all kinds of mormon folklore. It increases the intrigue of the church at the time. Then when their words are proven false or fall out of favor with the current church leaders, the church says they never taught it.

Here is how to call the church on their BS. What would happen to you if you teach from the pulpit that Brigham Young was a false prophet? We all know the answer to that one. So what would happen if you taught in 1980 that god cursed the black race with black skin because of their sins committed by them before birth? Nothing! So when the church leaders allow certain things to be taught and other things to not be taught, we know this is because while denying that Brigham Young was a prophet is unacceptable, that teaching that all black people were pre-earth-life sinners is acceptable (and thus docterine).

I can't believe no one has mentioned the Pre-Existence!

Where our behavior dictated the conditions of our birth. It wasn't a haphazard free-for-all as to who your parents would be. How privileged all you White Devils must have felt!

"Lordy, lordy, ye Saints of Zion, don't let your daughters grow up and marry a Mexican!" I think that was hymn #209 in the old hymnal. Ah, the memories!

Alvin R Dyer was the Grand Purveyor of Deep Doctrine about the Pre-existence. His talks on the subject were carefully hand typed and circulated on the Mormon underground. They were considered serious meat, not to be shared with the unprepared.

They told of what we know about people based solely on their race. That is basically the textbook definition of racism. Mormons of course would deny that was racist, but they were aware enough to realize they couldn't say that stuff out loud so the general public could hear it. It was very hush-hush, and you felt privileged to read the typed carbon copy of one of his screeds.

I found Dyer's talk that was circulating on the Mormon underground. It's a bit of a long read but an interesting window onto Mormon attitudes about race. I'm not at all familiar with the web site. It appears to be pro-Mo, so I guess the content doesn't trouble them.

https://www.mrm.org/for-what-purpose-dyer

mrm is not pro-mormon.

From their website https://www.mrm.org/about
there is this

We at Mormonism Research Ministry resolve to accomplish the above in a manner that honors the Lord Jesus Christ. Our goal is not just to give compelling arguments that show Mormonism to be in error, but to be used by the Holy Spirit to see lives changed for God’s glory.

And
MRM is a member of Evangelical Ministries to New Religions.

But thanks for posting Dyer's talk.

Ah, so. I should have checked more closely. I was surprised that Mormons wouldn't be surprised by this talk, and embarrassed. I guess many of them would be embarrassed. At least I would hope so.

BTW, the early sixties was right before photocopiers became available, and copies of that talk were produced using typewriters and carbon paper. Yes, literal "carbon copies". As I recall, an original and two carbon copies was the maximum amount of paper you could get to properly feed into a typewriter. Plus you pretty much needed a good electric typewriter to get a readable second copy. A manual typist had trouble hitting the keys with uniformly high force.

Your website is an excellent source of truth and knowledge.

Right on, Don. I heard every one of those things, too.

Yea that programming is in the brain for sure. They only repeat it all a million times over and over.

That was my indoctrination too.

The mormon church of the 1960's could not forsee that the internet and household printers, would one day expose their racket en-mass the rest of the world. Where was god in this whole mess? Why didn't he protect his only true church? He could have at least given them a heads-up about what was about to happen. Maybe he is pissed at them for hijacking his name, abusing his authority, and then not acting in a Christian way at all.

That sounds reasonable.

Out of interest, were you taught that the RLDS (now Community of Christ) was also“of the devil”? Or was that church just erased from the LDS narrative?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2020 07:37AM by Perdition.

brainwashing sessions at the local stake center featuring whackos like Cleon Skousen, Duane Crowther, Lawrence R. Flake, Paul Chessman, Rodney Turner, and Truman Madsen. Maybe you all can add to this list.

I'm embarrassed to say that I was TBM and soaked this stuff up like a spiritual sponge even as a high schooler in the later 1960s.

Mormon doctrine is so watered down now that I don't get how even TBM's can stand it anymore?


https://universe.byu.edu/1999/11/02/know-your-religion-program-is-the-largest-branch-of-ces/

The Columbus thing is from the Book of Mormon. It plainly prophesied Columbus coming to America to prepare the way for the restoration of Christ's true church. I doesn't say explicitly that he was fore-ordained, but that is the logical conclusion- if he was prophesied, then he must have been predestined before he was born, right?

Such fun.