You may also be able to turn the bishop's own testimony against him by getting him to testify to something you know to be false. For example, if you can get him to bear his testimony that JS did not engage in polyandry, or could translate Egyptian, you can then prove the exact opposite. This will have the effect of neutralizing any testimony going forward; after all, how can his testimony be trus
Forum: Recovery Board

I will do my part and go without Italian food for a day. (Maybe Brazilian churrascaria instead…)
Forum: Recovery Board

Damn, I wish I'd thought of that.
Forum: Recovery Board

"Has anyone done any research into the problems with polygamy and incest?" Yes, that subject has been covered here. http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1371364
Forum: Recovery Board

Try this. Let's say you and she agree to go halfies on tithing – so 5%. If she's anything like reasonable, she'll agree to that. BUT – don't pay as you go. Put the tithing in a separate bank account. Let it sit all year while she thinks about it. Then, at settlement time, she'll be sitting on several thousand dollars. Maybe she'll give it to the church, but maybe she'll suddenly decide tha
Forum: Recovery Board

I think that "intangible religious benefits" statement on the settlement report is an IRS requirement. It allows you to itemize your tithing etc. as a charitable deduction. If it were not on the statement, the IRS would likely disallow it on the grounds that a *tangible* benefit would qualify as a purchase of goods (non-deductible) instead of a charitable contribution.
Forum: Recovery Board

"Jan 26, 1880 - Wilford Woodruff, after waking in the middle of the night while camping in the mountains near Sunset, Arizona, receives his 'Wilderness revelation'… In spite of this Woodruff, a decade later, issues the 'Manifesto' purporting to end the practice of plural marriage." Woodruff became profit in 1889 and died in 1898. So he had 18 years (9 as profit) to get his "re
Forum: Recovery Board

A couple of posters have raised perfectly valid objections to my suggestion that the church may attempt to reinstate the Law of Consecration in a last-gasp move. I share those objections. As I wrote, I can't see how it could possibly succeed. That's why I suggested it as a possibility only as a last resort. If the top leaders see the church circling the drain and in real danger of going under, th
Forum: Recovery Board

I'm going to be sort of a contrarian here. *Sort of.* Yes, there will be strings. Thick steel cables, actually. But I don't think it has to be missionary-oriented. The mission and the ward have different priorities. If the missionaries were taking the lead, then of course they would be interested in conversion. The mission mindset is strictly dunk & ditch, then leave the cleanup to the
Forum: Recovery Board

I'm still doubtful, but on this I would like to doubt my doubts. Really though, I can't see it being the end until they play their last remaining financial card, that being the formal reinstitution of the Law of Consecration. Tithing was brought in only after the first try at the LOC had failed dismally. As a matter of doctrine, however, the LOC was only suspended and could always be brought b
Forum: Recovery Board

Among that crowd, who isn't? They're expecting a lot of openings in the next few years, and are jockeying into position for the next Apostle Derby. Clark is trying to become the Second Coming of Bednar. My handicap is the same: Clayton, then Clark. Third place has been taken by Lynn Robbins on the strength of his toadying address in the last GC toward Packer. LR now has his nose planted fir
Forum: Recovery Board

Thank you all for reading these opening verses and for your comments. Metered verse, well and consistently done, is wicked hard to pull off. I like to think I've made a decent start, and I'm optimistic that I can maintain or improve on it. I will be able to finish it; my hope is that when the whole thing is finished and posted, that people will take the time to read it from beginning to end. I
Forum: Recovery Board

You have superb taste in music, sir. At this very moment I have "The Tallis Scholars Sing Palestrina" in my CD player. Nothing is better for relieving tension and calming the mind than Gregorian chant. For my money, the greatest hymn ever written is still "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." Even now I can't hear it without choking up a little. It's so good even the MoTab c
Forum: Recovery Board

Many of my posts run to the satirical, as the half dozen or so people who have read them can attest. Usually, they've been all types of what my twisted mind sees as humor – scripture, press releases, 19th century tweets and adventure stories, and God's reading list. Not really any poetry though. (OK, maybe a little, but nothing major.) I'm correcting that oversight with a review of Joseph Smith
Forum: Recovery Board

Quite easily. "They were overruled by someone who was in a position of authority." Who was this person in authority? Only someone very high up can make that kind of call. A Q15, someone who isn't supposed to lead the church astray, most likely. Someone who harangues from the pulpit every GC about how everyone should shut up and be obedient, or else. And now, years later, this b
Forum: Recovery Board

Beats me, to be honest. I didn't serve my mission in Japan. But I did go out at this time, and if the Sorting Hat had chosen differently, I too would have been caught up in the mayhem and its aftermath. I can say this, however. At that time, Japan was seen as the place to go. At the MTC, we were genuinely envious of the Japan-bound missionaries. In our naïveté, we believed that the miraculou
Forum: Recovery Board

Food Network analogy. The searing heat of the Internet is boiling away the "impurity" of critical thinking in the stewpot of Mormonism. The membership is being reduced into a Mormon demi-glace, which will become more intense as the reduction continues.
Forum: Recovery Board

Actually, they already have, many times and in detail. You can perform a Search and read about it that way.
Forum: Recovery Board

Maybe we should start "challenging" missionaries and other Mormons to read the essays and the CES letter. Turn their tactics back on them and see how they like it.
Forum: Recovery Board

This is how my youth instructors taught it to me back in the 1970s. The Millennium will be largely dedicated to temple work. During the Mill, JC's personal endorsement of the church will ensure that virtually the entire world population will be LDS. Also, temple stuff is CK-specific, and is unnecessary for those stuck in either of the TKs. During the Mill it will somehow be obvious who is C
Forum: Recovery Board

I think the reason that Maher specifically is popular on RFM is due to "Religulous." IIRC, Tal Bachman was interviewed on the movie's Mormonism segment. ETA: (Psst, Tal. This is your cue to talk about any impressions from the interview or other behind the scenes stuff on the movie.)
Forum: Recovery Board

Agreed. What part of D&C 132, per the church, is supposed to be a sin?
Forum: Recovery Board

"The course is fixed and certain by which a person may return to the full blessing of church membership, and we stand ready to receive all who wish to do so." Translation – "We'll let you back in, but only on OUR terms. Prepare to grovel."
Forum: Recovery Board

Okay then, fire off an email to the NY Times about it, preferably direct to the writer of the recent Nauvoo polygamy article that generated all the bad publicity in the first place. Send another email to the SL Trib. Maybe that Kirby guy who everyone loves can mention it. The church hates bad press.
Forum: Recovery Board

There was a long thread a few days ago on this same topic. The answers there ought to apply to your situation as well. http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1486794 Some problems appear here with depressing regularity.
Forum: Recovery Board

Ask them if there is anything you can do to get them to shun you.
Forum: Recovery Board

It is painful to read something written by an 18-year-old that would receive a failing grade from a fourth-grade teacher.
Forum: Recovery Board