I particularly struggled yesterday to keep my mouth shut in the priesthood and Sunday school lessons. A few gems for your amusement:

1) We are the only true Christians when you really think about it and all others are wrong. We have to be careful about saying this to people since it will likely cause offence. But it's true.

2) How many times a week do the full time missionaries have to correct falsehoods with the truth? Answer - almost every day they have to correct poorly informed and opinionated people.

3) The church completely stopped polygamy in 1890.

4) It might look like they stopped this because of political pressure, but we know that wasn't the case.

5) Mitt Romney has been a huge blessing for the church in helping progress positive PR.

6) If Mitt gets elected as President, we should hope and expect that he will be able to influence government policies that will be much more in line with LDS teachings.

7) The Rome temple was built because the LDS church was able to have the ear of the pope and persuade him.

8) The church is about to have the doors to missionary work in China fully opened. This stone is rolling on.

9) The church is true.

6) If Mitt gets elected as President, we should hope and expect that he will be able to influence government policies that will be much more in line with LDS teachings.

All voters will have home teachers.
A recommend will be required for Federal buildings.
No men will work for women.

Deals will once again be done on a handshake...and the level of payment will depend on which handshake you are able to demonstrate!

If anything he will likely distance himself from his religion beyond attending church.

I don't vote...just my opinion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2012 11:13AM by beansandbrews.

Since Bloomburg was the one who ran the BussinessWeek story, I was kind of wondering if the whole thing was a sit up to give Romney a practical reason to distance himself from the church now.

"You know, I read that article too, and I learned a lot of troubling information about how my church is ran. I don't know what to make about it, have been praying, but I plan on looking more into it down the road when I have the time." Romney then stops attending church members regularly, and rumors start getting leaked that he is planning to leave the church after the election. Mormons are then told that these are just lies by Satan to discredit him.

"We are the only true Christians when you really think about it and all others are wrong."

No, they're not. I think this is the heart of their narcissism that affects their prejudice and discrimination towards everybody who isn't Mormon.

"Mitt Romney has been a huge blessing for the church in helping progress positive PR . . . If Mitt gets elected as President, we should hope and expect that he will be able to influence government policies that will be much more in line with LDS teachings."

My only response to that is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuN3ipkGZKI&list=UUEmCXnbNYz-MOtXi3lZ7W1Q&index=1&feature=plcp

I hate it that we were taught (and coerced) to keep our mouths shut during these lessons. I couldn't keep doing that, and I brought up - in a lesson about Abraham taking Isaac up a mountain with the intent to kill him - that that was a horrible thing to do, and if such an act had occured now, the father would have been charged with child abuse and/or attempted murder, and the child would certainly have been taken from his home. In that case, no one said a thing, and they went on with the lesson. But at least I got my point in, and I didn't stew about it afterwards (like I usually did when stupid things were said/taught at 'church').

I think items # 1 though 8 should definitely have been questioned or commented on (# 9 is just too stupid to address). Bring them up for discussion and comment, have them back up what they're saying. When no one questions or challenges, people tend to keep saying more more and more bizarre things, and never get challenged to back them up.

I complained about the exact same thing to my wife yesterday. Falsehoods are taught week after week and never corrected until people believe they are true. What really started my doubting was realizing that if the church were actually true, it wouldn't be for any of the reasons repeated week after week.

The one that bothered me this week was about an email the High Counselor received in his email regarding removing "In God We Trust" from currency. He seemed to believe the founding fathers would be rolling in their graves if it were removed, completely unaware of the actual history of the national motto.

This topic became the focus of the rest of the meetings with the grand finale in EQ where the teacher said without belief in God there are no morals and there is nothing to stop him from going out and stealing, killing, etc. What really scares me is he is a Psychologist who actually deals with people.

...The question is this: Which is the wisest course for the Latter-day Saints to pursue—to continue to attempt to practice plural marriage, with the laws of the nation against it and the opposition of sixty millions of people, and at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice);

… I saw exactly what would come to pass if there was not something done. I have had this spirit upon me for a long time. But I want to say this: I should have let all the temples go out of our hands; I should have gone to prison myself, and let every other man go there, had not the God of heaven commanded me to do what I did do; and when the hour came that I was commanded to do that, it was all clear to me. I went before the Lord, and I wrote what the Lord told me to write

Whoever said number four has issues. I was taught in church that they stopped it, because the church always follows the "laws of the land." In other words, political pressure...

Which sounds good to TBM, but bigamy was against the law in all of the states the Mormons settled prior to heading out West

Oh yes, I would have had a very difficult time keeping my trap shut. It would have just boiled up inside me and I would have been infuriated if I couldn't let it out. This is exactly why I don't attend church anymore.

I understand that recently the Native American as "Lamanite" was downplayed in the introduction to the Book of MOrmon. What do the TBM's really think? Has that changed the way Lamanites have traditionally been viewed?

and thought of saying something--as I've said it before. (And I think your list is pretty typical--pretty closed-mineded.)

BUT--my great-grandmother got married to my great-grandfather in 1908 in UTAH--along with her sister--they were his 2nd and 3rd wives. He was much older than they were. They were members in good standing all their lives. So, no, polygamy didn't end either of the times they said it did.

Only by me to two TBMs during the lessons (texted them the link). They were shocked and pretty upset to hear about the mall and pitiful humanitarian aid.