Despite the fact Gourdo the Clown PRofit proclaimed,”It all boils down to the first vision, either it happened the way Joseph Smith said it did, in which case it is the greatest news since the atonement or it didn’t and it is the greatest fraud ever foisted upon mankind. There is no middle ground.”
Completely ignoring the fact there were 4 very different accounts of the First Vision.
My Bishop tried refuting my claims, that Joseph’s Myth is a fraud, by quoting Gordo the Clown PProft.
When I replied,”Which one?”
He said,”Well, they were all basically the same.”
I shook me head in the negatory direction and he asked, surprised,”They’re not?”
I said,”No. in fact they differ in the most fundamental aspect, who was there? In the original version, the only one written in Joseph’s own hand, there was only mention of ‘the Lord’ singular.’ The official version is actually the 4the version, written under great duress, after all the original witnesses had left the faith or had been excommunicated.’
He acted stunned to learn of this. He asked where I read that.
I told him, Grant Palmer, Insiders View of Mormon Origins.
He dismissed it as anti Mormon literature.
I said it was written by a true believing Mormon, who taught Institute classes his whole career.
He actually replied,”Anything that contradicts the official narrative is anti-Mormon.”
I said,”So you expect me to believe Joseph Smith’s original account of the First Vision is Anti-Mormon since it contradicts his heavily edited 4th Version, written 20yrs after the fact?”
He said,”Yes”
I told him “No.”



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2021 01:14AM by schrodingerscat.

Zero intellectual curiosity - and a marked antipathy to evidence and reason. Fascinating, says Spock.
(And whattchadontuse, you lose, ya know - know one 40 year hard-core TBM high-priest-type who now cannot independently decide to take an umbrella or not, and wishes authoritative advisement on the matter)(literally)

But consider the benefits, can pick the version that suits the mood of the moment, create additional as the spirit moves.


For example, the one with Tinkerbell . . .

We're the ones who have amnesia. We remember it all wrong.

cl2notloggedin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We're the ones who have amnesia. We remember it
> all wrong.

We remember. They choose to forget, or ignore.
The ironic thing is the Bishop who told me that, was my wife's OB/Gyn and delivered 3/4 of our kids. I trust the guy's medical opinion, I trusted my wife's life to him, but he sits there and tells me Joseph Smith was an anti-Mormon because his original version of the 1st Vision contradicted his heavily edited 4th version, written 18years after the fact?
Even my wife who was TBM at the time was like WTF? Seriously?

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The ironic thing is the Bishop who told me that,
> was my wife's OB/Gyn and delivered 3/4 of our
> kids. I trust the guy's medical opinion, I trusted
> my wife's life to him, but he sits there and tells
> me Joseph Smith was an anti-Mormon because his
> original version of the 1st Vision contradicted
> his heavily edited 4th version, written 18years
> after the fact?
===============================
So you're saying that all that schooling & training just turned him into a giant parrot!?

:-D

Funny how that happens

So the Bishop is saying that JS the founder and restorer of the Church on the Earth is himself an anti-Mormon? That's when you get on the phone to the Stake President or else stand up during F&T meeting. That would definitely stir some from their stupor.

Never discount the appeal of ignorance.

Those mental acrobatics are simple compared to others I’ve seen in the Mormon circus.

When I was TBM, no facts could have fazed me either. Mormonism is all about belief. It’s like being in a bubble. Imagine being inside a mirrored Christmas ball ornament. Everything you see is a reflection of what’s inside the ball.

Critical race theory, CRT, is a lot like anti-Mormonism. American imperialism, powered by a huge military industrial complex, is just White Supremacy projected abroad. You might say White Supremacy, and you can be any color you want as long as you play the game, is a kind of national identity. It’s a belief system, just like Mormonism.

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Those mental acrobatics are simple compared to
> others I’ve seen in the Mormon circus.

I am fascinated by the pathology that held me captive inside Plato's Cave of Shadows.
It's not just Mormonism. Before I took the faith I inherited, Mormonism, seriously, I took another faith seriously, Islam. I really fell in love with Islam because of the Mystic Sufi writings of Kahlil Gibran. At 18 I dropped out of Art College and I traveled to North Africa in my quest to answer a question my English teacher asked me,

"What is Art?"

and I ended up in Africa, where I went to see, with my own eyes, what art was in a different culture from the one where I grew up.

The same phenomenon has been at play throughout history and depicted by many great books and films, starting with Wizard of Oz and Ending with the Matrix.

> When I was TBM, no facts could have fazed me
> either.

But they did faze you as a TBM, eventually, right?

> Mormonism is all about belief. It’s like
> being in a bubble. Imagine being inside a mirrored
> Christmas ball ornament. Everything you see is a
> reflection of what’s inside the ball.
>
> Critical race theory, CRT, is a lot like
> anti-Mormonism.

Huh? Care to elaborate on that theory?

I'm all for teaching real history. I think it's a national shame that NONE of us knew about Black Wall Street or the Tulsa OK Massacre until a GD superhero Movie came out on Netflix and told us about it. AND we're 1/5th of the way through the 21st GD CENTURY!!!

Why are we not talking about FACTS?
Like genetic FACTS, that we've all learned, that we now know, that we're 99.9% genetically identical. That we're only really talking about 1/10th of 1%, tops, in any discussion that we have about race, gender, sexual orientation, all fits into that 1/10th of 1%.

I always wondered how that worked when geneticists tell us Eurasian DNA is 2% Neanderthal, and Asian DNA is, on average, an additional 4% Denisovan, or now, Dragon Man.

So instead of "Asian" why not "Dragon Man" or "Denisovan"?

Or instead of white, why not "Neanderthal"?

And instead of African or Black, why not "Homo Sapien Sapien"? Or Homo Sapien Idaltu, Wise Elder Man, Adam, since they are the only purebred "Wise Wise Men".

The rest of us are all hybrids of one sort or another, between lots of different species.

Some of which are still being discovered every day in DNA.

So the way the math works out is that

Africans = 100% Homo Sapiens Sapiens (Hybrid of more ancient Humans, homo)
Eurasians = 98% HSS and 2% Homo Neanderthalis
Asians = 94% HSS and 2% Neanderthal and 4% Denisovan/Dragon Man
Australians/Melanesians/Australian Aborigines = 93% HSS 2% HSN 5% HSDenisovan/Dragon Man

the fraction that has now become a pitched battle between Americans,

Between White Nationalist on one side, fighting the rising tide of multi-culturalism and diversity in America.

Trump is a racist response to America electing a black man as President.

Even though he was half black and half white.

And it pointed out what's wrong with America, a very passionate, very religious few can rule the many and bend reality in their direction.

The problem is, that very religious narratives don't end well for those who are not believers.

> American imperialism, powered by a
> huge military industrial complex, is just White
> Supremacy projected abroad. You might say White
> Supremacy, and you can be any color you want as
> long as you play the game, is a kind of national
> identity. It’s a belief system, just like
> Mormonism.

Well, and it's a belief system that ends the same way, in a giant ball of plasma.

The earth turns into a sun.

Have a nice summer.

Moroni 10:5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

The “power of the Holy Ghost” is emotion-not facts, objective evidence, or verifiable reality. According to Mormonism, warm tingly feelings are the most reliable source of all truth. Not just truth about the BoM, but ALL truth.

It’s often a waste of time to show TBMs facts, when they already “know” the “truth.”

Exactly. Anything that contradicts their deeply felt beliefs is ‘Anti-Mormon’ even if it was the original account of the 1st Vision, the only one written in Joseph’s own hand.
Mind boggling.
All that education just makes him all the more capable of justifying his racist, sexist, homophobic beliefs.

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Exactly. Anything that contradicts their deeply
> felt beliefs is ‘Anti-Mormon’ even if it was
> the original account of the 1st Vision, the only
> one written in Joseph’s own hand.
> Mind boggling.
> All that education just makes him all the more
> capable of justifying his racist, sexist,
> homophobic beliefs.
===============================
Nothing scarier because
1. These cannot be approached with reason (or even fact)
2. Righteousness is the seed of inhumanity

So then when you eat a bowl of ice cream or do something really fun and get warm and tingly it's just the spirit manifesting itself?

I heard a mission story about a couple of Elders who had a spiritual experience on a mountain top. They saw 2 beings they said, along with the local Bishop.

The three of them climbed down the mountain and back into town. The second that news started spreading the Mission President showed up. They were told to never mention it again. Nobody could have a First vision or second vision experience and if they did they would be ex-d and sent home.

Instead of that, the senior was transferred the next week and the junior comp was demoted from the District Leader position. Then he was soon sent to the "bottomless pit" of their mission where he was left to think about his experience for 8 months.

The Bishop, who wanted to keep telling people about it because he felt it was from God, was pressured and died not long after. It was because the Lord hadn't approved of him trying to outdo JS not due to his heart or how upset he was.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2021 08:49AM by daverichards1.

Today's "first vision" story was codified by "the Brethern" in what? 1856, I think, 12 years after Smith's death.

My dad believed passionately in every true story he made up. He'd empty buildings when people fought, pushed, and shoved their desperate way out before he backed them into a corner.

The problem is that ridiculous anti-Mormon literature is a thing. Have any of you looked at some of Ed Dekker's stuff? His version of TSCC is barely recognizable to anyone who has been through the Temple, whether they're an active member or Exmo.

This was even the case in the nineteenth century. There were grand exposés of polygamy and Brigham Young that were made up by people who had never been to Utah and got details like geography wrong. There were also plenty accounts of Joseph Smith that were exaggerated and fabricated.

So when Mormons get skeptical about them, it's partly true believer syndrome but also a response to tall tales which have been spun about them. I think this contaminates realistic and convincing stories.

Ed Dekker’s stuff is so bad that when I was a TBM, it actually made me feel better about TSCC. I thought “if that’s the best they have, the church must be true.”

As an exmo, seeing his videos, or hearing him being interviewed, makes me want to get rebaptized. :)

True, but it is also just a way to discredit everything that contradicts the “official version of history” even if it was produced by Joseph Smith himself. So now Joseph Smith is anti Mormon.

Has anyone ever done an extensive genealogical study of Joseph Smith's lineage? If you could find any member of Joseph Smith's ancestry who had African origins, then the whole church would cease to have ever been true (not that it was ever true anyway). The "one drop of blood rule", said that even one drop of African blood was enough to disqualify a person from holding the priesthood. So with no legitimate Priesthood coming to us through Joseph Smith, the church would cease to be true even for believers. I think that most of us probably have some African blood somewhere in our lineage considering that most humans evolved in Africa before spreading humanity around the world.