For the LDS Church to be of God, one must accept the premise that God condones the use of deceit, lies, fraud, and the suppression of truth in the furtherance of His kingdom. Such a premise is completely antithetical to the prevailing Judeo-Christian concept of God. After all, Christ is reported to have said: “Know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” That mandate alone is enough to discredit the LDS Church as being of Christ. In addition, one must adopt a magical or mythological approach to LDS scriptures such as the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon, as they are clearly not the historical documents they are purported to be. Mormon leaders routinely exhort Church members to pray for divine confirmation of the truthfulness of the LDS Church and its related paraphernalia (e.g., the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, etc.). From my perspective, this is like asking God for a confirmation that the earth is flat. It seems ludicrous–even contemptuous–to ask God to validate the truth of things which reason indicates are clearly false. God might expect mankind to have faith in the unseen, but certainly not in the absurd.

IMO, one must adopt a magical or mythological approach to believe most of religion. Mormonism isn't doing anything new.

>God might expect mankind to have faith in the unseen, but certainly not in the absurd.

You have no knowledge or proof whatsoever regarding what God expects any more than Mormons. Most of religion is full of absurdities. Requiring faith is bogus enough, IMO.

Don't be so cocksure that I have no knowledge or proof whatsoever regarding the expectations of God. For a good portion of my twenties, I was a Marxist and an agnostic tending toward atheism. However, during my last semester of law school, I fought with a demon for about half an hour. I am absolutely convinced that there is evil, as well as an evil force, in the world. About 9 years later, I am certain that I heard the voice of God or of someone closely associated with God. I don't say that lightly. I heard the voice again some six months later. Both times were about future events that later occurred. I know that my knowledge of God and the devil will have no effect on you, but it certainly works for me. I would have to say that my experiences have forced me to believe in God and in the devil. Maybe you, too, will have experiences that change your perspective of the unseen.

Good grief.

That sounds real

It was very real. I am no flake. I have never used hallucinogenic drugs or alcohol, and I have a degree from a respected university in a hard science. Had someone told me, before I had the experience with the demon, that they had had a similar experience, I would have told him that he needed to see a psychiatrist.

What are the objective standards by which you identify a demon?

What are the objective standards by which you identify divine intervention?

What are the objective standards by which you identify something as divine? Or which divinity?

You see the problem.

You can make claim after claim as much as you like about your experience. But you offer no basis for anyone to believe it.

You might try saying I had an experience I interpret as a demonic attack rather than claiming I was attacked by a demon. One shows the subjectivity of the claim, of recognizing there is no standard by which you can claim a demon attacked you rather than say Xenu from the the center of a volcano.

Similarly, you say it was evil. Please show the scale of recognizing how good/evil something immaterial is. How do you know?

You attack mormonism for outlandish claims.

Your story is no different than mormon testimony meeting. You are attesting you had an experience within your world view. Which doesn't make it real or verifiable or true. Just an experience you interpret through a lens.

Though I am no believing Mormon, my experience with the demon was remarkably similar to Joseph Smith's description of the evil force that held him bound. It temporarily paralyzed me, and was attempting to suffocate me. I would have to conclude that Joseph Smith was familiar with the devil, but doubt that he ever had any contact with God.

Making more claims to justify prior claims doesn't help your case

What is your problem? I am a lawyer. I am not attempting to justify anything. I merely described what happened to me. I am old enough that I don't care what you or anyone else thinks of me or my posts.

Perhaps you should. And why would anyone care that you are a lawyer? Lawyers can be delusional whack jobs too. Exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.

I believe you. Nobody believes in demons until they have to deal with them. There was a guy in my ward who did exorcisms, and he needed to do that in the case of the 2nd Counselor's daughter who was possessed by a powerful demon after dabbling in witchcraft. DW was there, she communicated with it telepathically. It could read her mind.

JS was classic NPD, which is a form of demonic possession. However, he was not constantly possessed or his followers would have noticed. He may have spoken for both God and the devil. The church tries to whitewash out the devil part instead of owning it.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2025 07:24PM by bradley.

I've heard various versions of this story. Basically, the daughter was playing with an ouija board and freaked out.

The story is always a young girl who is the daughter of some high up in the ward.

"she communicated with it telepathically.It could read her mind."

I think this line was stolen from the exorcist movie

bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> JS was classic NPD, which is a form of demonic
> possession.

Actually, it's classified as a mental health condition.


From the Mayo Clinic:

"Narcissistic personality disorder is a ***mental health condition*** in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism.


"Treatment for narcissistic personality disorder centers around talk therapy, also called psychotherapy."


https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662

The thing is, people with NPD are ALWAYS right so they will seldom seek or accept any kind of treatment.

Always a problem, yes. But there's a medical explanation for it that doesn't include "demons".

I'm not aware of having a problem.

I'm pointing out why your claims are no better than mormonism's claims.

Clearly you care to a degree as you post those claims here.

Credibility is the core of exchange in a forum.

What claim have I made? I have merely described my personal experience. That does not constitute a claim. I was forced to be a believer, in spite of my inclination toward disbelief. For some reason, you find it necessary to attack the experiences of others simply because they are not part of your reality. As a lawyer, I abide by my state's canon of ethics. I do not bear false witness. I regret that, as a Mormon missionary 55 years ago, I was expected to do so.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2025 11:21PM by zliska.

Saying you were paralyzed by a demon is a claim.

I understand you believe it. That doesn't make it factual.

This is not attacking. You can not expect people to buy the extraordinary claims of someone who has posted for a few days. People here question. It's how we got out of mormonism.

I could claim to be the Queen of England. After all, I have a dozen or so tiaras. I know all the wives of Henry VIII. I know who is the only female made Princess of Wales. I drink English Grey from Buckingham Palace and eat biscuits from Holyrood House. People here are not going to start to bend a knee or call me HRM.

Steve Benson never expected anyone to take anything he said at face value and he was the grandson of a prophet and posted here for years. If you have a sacred cow, best not to take it down to the stockyard.

Your posts have been eyebrow raisers on a few fronts.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2025 12:26AM by Susan I/S.

"I drink English Grey"

<bow> Your majesty!

LOL, I meant Earl Grey but it is from Buckingham. Shipping is not bad if you buy several things at once. I have some lovely pieces that commemorate Queen Elizabeth. She was fond of pink roses as am I so they fit right with the other things in my house. Next I am looking for a nice replica of either the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland tiara or the Cartier Halo :)

I have been posting on this forum for twenty years, although I haven't been active for some time. It appears that you give members of the LDS royalty more credence than you give the church laity. My family has been involved with Mormonism since the very beginning. Two of my great aunts were wives of Joseph Smith. My 3rd great grandfather was killed by a mob in Nauvoo. My 2nd great-grandmother died of cholera while crossing the plains. I am a descendant of polygamists. Though I am most closely related to Eliza and Lorenzo Snow, I am also related to every one of the LDS Church presidents. I have spoken with Steve, who is, of course, also a cousin.

The worst thing about Mormonism is that it attempts to control every aspect of one's life, from the time one is born, with an intense indoctrination program. I think all of the general authorities are headed for hell for bearing false witness (either knowingly or out of carelessness), for fraud in the inducement with respect to missionary work, and for a program of massive duplicity, whereby they hold themselves out as Christ’s representatives on earth and yet engage in lies, fraud and deceit to maintain their power base.

You have not been posting here, under this name. Ever. I have been here since the beginning, mainly as Admin. If you have been around, at all, you would know this. I have always used this name. Though you may have been registered earlier, the first post using this name is 1/10/2025. What other names have you used?

The point you missed is that no one gave Steve a pass on anything let alone fantastic claims. If his health permitted, I would ask him about you.

My family goes back as far and deep as yours, it means nothing here. No one is impressed.

Everyone here is well aware of the mormon control factor. You are preaching to the choir in all of your posts. This is not new information. It is obvious these are copied from another source. Would you like to share that information? Did you even write them? Would you like to share your sudden need to share them all? It is obvious you have some kind of agenda. Would you like to share that? Eric, owner and founder of this board would like to know.

Susan, you truly are a termagant. Twenty years ago, I posted a 20+ (edited: make that 16) page essay on the boards. It was visible for several years, but it seems to have disappeared. The title was A DISBELIEVING MEMBER OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS SPEAKS HIS MIND. The essay began with the first two lines of the rock song, Somebody to Love by the Jefferson Airplane: "When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies". Over the past 20 years, my essay has expanded to 37 pages, as I have gained new insights. I don't think that anyone would want to read an essay that is nearly 40 pages in length. So these posts are excerpts taken from that essay. As for Steve Benson, we have a common friend who is a trademark client of mine. Steve was visiting him when we spoke. By the way, I am sorry to hear that Steve is not in good health. He is more than 4 years younger than I. I have great respect for his talent, his bravery and his honesty.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2025 10:06PM by zliska.

>Termagant

It is usually just Lot’s Wife who posts the occasional word that I need to look up. The definition I got was “ill-tempered or overbearing woman.” I don’t suppose that is enough to label you sexist, but it is enough to keep an eye out.

When you mentioned FlattopSF, it was obvious you had been here quite a while ago. Susan asked what name you posted under, and you neglected to answer. Maybe you missed the question, so I’ll ask again.

We get old-timers coming back now and then. They often post under their original name, and there is a round of virtual handshakes and reminiscences. Sometimes they take a new username, but say they used to post as ________. Any particular reason you didn’t do that?

As for your essay that was posted here that is no longer available - RFM changed software packages for board operation about 15 years ago if I recall correctly. Anything posted before the change no longer shows up in the search function. I think some of the archived threads were brought over but there is no good way that I am aware of to search the archived threads, and I don’t know if yours was archived in any case.

I'm more skeptical than you, BoJ. Observations:

First, the information our new guest attributes to Flattop SF did not come from Flattop SF. He knew the situation within Tokyo South but not the bigger picture; his appreciation of the role played by Kikuchi, for example, as very limited, as was his grasp of the situation in other parts of Japan and South Korea. Truth be told, no one in any single mission would understand the larger problem. It remains the case that the RfM archives are full of relevant information and that that information is largely replicated by zliska, but he seems to have forgotten where precisely he garnered it.

Second, zliska asserts that he has participated here for 20+ years. When pressed on that claim, however, he retreated to a slightly different position, stating that he posted his magnum opus "on these boards," which is not necessarily the same thing as RfM. Furthermore, I suspect that if he had posted it here as opposed to some other ex-Mormon board, the RfM long-timers would remember it. Given that apparently no one does, I suspect zliska did not in fact post it here.

Third, zliska acknowledges that it would be impolite to subject us to a 37-page manifesto on topics we already understand but then proceeds to bombard us with piecemeal excerpts from that dissertation whose subject matter we already understand. People have hinted at the fact that our more normal back-and-forth is a more comfortable mode of communication but as of yet to no avail.

dagny is right. zliska's document would better fit substack or one of the other sites where people routinely publish their own major projects.

--Lot's Wife, Termagant, First Class, and Middle School Librarian



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2025 04:09AM by Lot's Wife.

He is (was?) bombarding us with lectures on subjects already well known here, which does seem kind of odd. OTOH, they are reasonably accurate synopses of events, and have triggered some exchanges, so, OK.

I don't remember his original (claimed) post, and I do go back that far. I could have forgotten it over the years. The board was pretty active back then. I might more likely remember the username, but he(?) has not been forthcoming with that information, for whatever reason.

Tarmagent - my first thought was isn't that some sort of bird? Turns out the bird is ptarmigan. Close.

I always think of a "tarmagent" as a shrew, as in Shakespeare's The Taming by the Shrew.*








*Edited to correct the preposition

I don't remember my user name. It was likely more like 23 years ago. My email address, however, which I later lost through inactivity, was SNJ-4@mail.com
I remember the email address well because I used the model name of my father's WWII SNJ-4 advanced US Navy trainer aircraft. He owned the plane in the 1960s. Two such aircraft collided and crashed last year at the Reno Air Races (they may have been AT-6 aircraft, which was the Army Air Corps name for the same plane).

SNJ-4@mail.com does not exist in the database. zliska registered 2/18/11. Zero posts until 1/10/25. Odd. Nothing by title, name zliska or snippets found in Archives or using the WayBack Machine. There have been many sites/forums that have come and gone over the years. This is was the first. Perhaps it was posted to a different site. I have no way of telling. No snippets are pulled with a net search.

In any case, it is basic Netiquette to introduce yourself and perhaps explain why you are there. Especially when your plan is to post multiple threads immediately.

Example -

Hi, this is zliska. I used to post here a long time ago. It may have been under a different name that I can not remember. I wrote a large essay then that I have added to over the years. Because of size, I will post it in smaller topics. Nice being here. I am looking forward to getting feedback and getting to know current posters :)

As to termagant, precious. I will add it to my CV right between Pitbull and Delete Bitch. After close to 30 years as Admin I don't care but if you insult another poster like that the Mods will take care of it. If you do it repeatedly, Eric and I will take care of it. Eric asked me to figure out what your agenda is, that is what happens. If you have a problem with a woman wanting answers, too bad. I tried to ask softly, but was ignored. I am assuming your agenda is just to put these online to get general feedback and that it is your Intellectual Property not copied from another source. We are very careful about that here. Well, they are copied but from your own files.

Attempting to bully anyone here using your profession, or background will not go well for you. They are irrelevant. BTW, chances are good we too are related. It was a small gene pool. Information about Benson can be found by using the SEARCH function at the top of the board using his wife's name Claire Ferguson Benson Be sure to set the time option to ALL DATES.

Susan, I am sorry I called you a termagant. You are probably a very kind person.

From the responses I have received, most of the posters on this website appear to be atheists. I wonder how they feel about the thousands of remarkable near-death experiences that have been documented? In many cases, non-medical people who have flatlined have described in detail the medical procedures that were used on them from the position of staring down from the ceiling.

By the way, if you are a member of the Johnson clan, then we are very close cousins.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2025 10:14PM by zliska.

> I
> wonder how they feel about the thousands of
> remarkable near-death experiences that have been
> documented?

They probably feel that none of those people actually died and hence that none of them have anything to say about what happens after death.

Seriously, your credibility is circling the drain.

Yes, Susan, I know you are no longer an Admin, but if they see this... since OP's credibility is being questioned the answer to this may shed light on that.

Last week - Friday I believe - there was a (now deleted) post referencing Nelson and Covid that contained multiple false statements about Covid and Covid vaccines. I think it was in response to this thread, (but I could be wrong)

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2528647

If so, my question is was that post by zliska?

If not, I apologize to him in advance. If it was, it does raise questions about his credibility.

I don't remember those posts, and I think I would. At least a few of them likely would have made it to the old archives, and I don't remember them from the archives, either.

I did recognize very long quotes taken wholesale (and without attribution) pertaining to the Groberg era in Japan.

Exactly. He purloined large chunks of other people's work and claimed it as his own.

As for his lengthy posts and whether they would be memorable, recall that he states that he posted not the excerpts but the entire 16-page document. That document, I speculate, would stick in anyone's memory.

Unless of course he did not post it here.

Wrong. I gave credit to flattopSF. Most of the information about the Grobergs came from first-hand knowledge. The information about David Groberg came straight out of the Idaho State Bar Journal. It has been 30 years since I read the article, so I verified with another person that my memory was correct.

> Wrong. I gave credit to flattopSF.

Giving credit to Flattop SF for information he never gave is not responsible.

--------------------
I repeat the question: the other day you stated that you posted your 16-page manifesto on RfM.

Is that true or not?

That is true. Probably 23 years ago. The email address I used was SNJ-4@mail.com
I remember the email address because I used the model name of my father's 1942 North American SNJ-4 naval trainer aircraft so I wouldn't forget it. I lost the account through non-use for more than 6 months.

That becomes a difficult position to maintain when the archives show you did not.

I don't recall seeing any quotation marks. And there was a very long quotation in your post. The original post that you quoted from without attribution was a memorable one. I remembered it, and likely others did as well.

Can you tell what the passage was? I'd like to go back and see who wrote it.

Lottie, it was the broad middle part of the post. I remembered the story, and it was expressed using the same words and the same language. Some posts and stories on this board stick with you.

As a disloyal UK subject (not citizen...), I'd take Queen Susan of the Interesting Sinners over King Charles of the Enormous Ears anytime :-D

Only if you promise not to laugh at me in a tiara!

And all your dogs must wear tiaras too ;-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2025 09:02AM by Soft Machine.

All gods are equally real.

Demonic possession is so passé. It turns out to be things like Tourettes or epilepsy or panic attack. Not only that, it’s old school. We have since progressed through seances (big in the 1890s), clairvoyance, alien abductions (the obvious space-age replacement for demonic possession), crop circles, UFOs and now swarms of drones.

These are all adult versions of “there’s a monster hiding under my bed”.

Sleep paralysis accounts for a lot too.

...and also possibly a waking dream. I forget what they are called.

out from my brother's room. He had actually walked into the room, and laid down, being fully asleep. We woke him, and helped him come back to my room. A sleepover of sorts. They were both straight tho.

It was weird. I had never seen someone walk like that, completely asleep. It's not possession, but it was definitely out of the realm of understanding.

I used to sleepwalk as a child. My parents told me how I walked to the kitchen one night, held a short conversation with my father, and returned to bed. I understand that it's not unusual.

The medical name for waking dreams is hypnagogic hallucinations.

Medical terminology is spectacularly lacking in gracefulness.

I was absolutely not asleep. I still remember it like it was yesterday. In fact, as a Marxist, I certainly did not believe in demons or in anything supernatural. The event forced me to change my view of the cosmos.

Assuming you didn't have a schizophrenic episode or psychotic break with reality or something similar that is...

Which is absolutely not a description of how memory works. The more strongly people recall events over this distance the more distorted they've become.

It's become identity more than memory.

Nevertheless it remains *your* experience which may *or may not* be extrapolated to others.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2025 11:53PM by summer.

There are multiple perfectly plausible non-woo explanations for demons, etc. that cannot be ruled out.
Instead, some people jump strait to supernatural explanations.

We've gone over this kind of thing dozens of times over the years.

Is it more likely that someone is:
mistaken
lying
having a sensory or brain illusion
putting a story together after the fact that matches their expectations

Or is it more likely laws of physics were broken just for that person that no one else experienced?

Standards for evidence are high for me. The most obvious common sense earthly explanations need to be ruled out.

Popular Western depictions of "God" as a full bearded old man come from the Greco-Roman god Zeus/Jupiter, the Dyeus Pitar of the Indo Europeans who lived on the Eurasian steppes.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is depicted in the same manner as Isis with the infant Horus.

The goat-man version of Satan comes from the god Pan and satyrs.

Jesus of Nazareth isn't described in the Gospels. It took several hundred years before we got the image of Jesus we have today. First as a youthful shepherd Apollo or Bacchus, then the quasi-Greek young scholar so familiar to everyone.

So what's a "demon" supposed to be anyway?


############


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon


The Ancient Greek word δαίμων (daimōn) denotes a spirit or divine power, much like the Latin genius or numen. Daimōn most likely came from the Greek verb daiesthai ("to divide" or "distribute").[9] The Greek conception of a daimōn notably appears in the philosophical works of Plato, where it describes the divine inspiration of Socrates. The original Greek word daimōn does not carry the negative connotation initially understood by implementation of the Koine δαιμόνιον (daimonion),[6] and later ascribed to any cognate words sharing the root.

The Greek terms do not have any connotations of evil or malevolence. By the early centuries of the Roman Empire, cult statues were seen, by Pagans and their Christian neighbors alike, as inhabited by the numinous presence of the Greco-Roman gods: "Like pagans, Christians still sensed and saw the gods and their power, and as something, they had to assume, lay behind it, by an easy traditional shift of opinion they turned these pagan daimones into malevolent 'demons', the troupe of Satan. Far into the Byzantine period, Christians eyed their cities' old pagan statuary as a seat of the demons' presence. It was no longer beautiful, it was "infested."[10] The term had first acquired its negative connotations in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, which drew on the mythology of ancient Semitic religions. This was then inherited by the Koine text of the New Testament.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2025 08:00AM by anybody.

Unix-derived systems (Unix, Linux, Android, MacOS,iOS, Red Hat, etc etc) refer to background processes that provide operating system services as daemons. The term is used in the ancient Greek sense - unseen divine power that does stuff the end user program cannot do on its own.

When your program sends a file to a printer, it really sends a message to a daemon that amounts to "hey, here's a file, please take care of sending it to this printer for me."

Windows refers to these background services as, well, services, which is what they are, but daemon is so much more poetic. Windows famously does not have a lot of poetry in its soul. :)

BTW, dee-mon and day-mon are both acceptable pronunciations. I really don't know which is preferred. I usually just see the word in print. Whenever someone mispronounces a word, they learned it from reading. :-/.

Look for yourself.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeus


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creation_of_Adam

Zliska, give it up, this is becoming ridiculous. But I did like the word termagant.

"Termagant"

First used on RfM by my beloved buddy, even elderolddog, in reference to your humble servant.

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2362846,2363199#msg-2363199

There too the conversation immediately turned to Shakespeare's The Taming by the Shrew.

"Termagant" is a really great word. The sound of it matches the meaning. I'm not sure if euphonic is the best way to describe it, but it comes close.

I picked up two new words recently. Quean and Dollymop :)