Thread 24636400

Have any (real) Christians read the Book of Mormon? Were you worried that it could change your perspective? Did it?

>>24636400 (OP)
>Book of Gibberish

>>24636403
Explain. I haven’t read it.

>>24636400 (OP)
The Book of Mormon is just another example of the insanity that plagues the inhabitants of the american continent. The best things one could do is to either ignore or laugh about it.

>>24636635
This but unironically

thinking of becoming a mormon myself

>>24636400 (OP)
I dont understand why people read religious text for fun. Complete snoozefest when it comes to writing and the novelty of "what the fuck am i reading" and "shit the actual fuck people really believe this" wears off pretty quick.

>>24636400 (OP)
REAL christians are terrified to read the book of mormon, because they might feel the truth, as they know their whole existence relies on FAITH, so if someone has faith this is real, they can't really argue against it.

>>24637296


I'd be mormon because most of them in charge are groomers and everytime you get someone baptized in the church you get to make them put on pure white clothing and get to see their pps while they submerge in water in full view because the baptism chamber is more like a fish tank. Fully glass. Becomes a quest of manipulating stupid people in for money and to see them sweet titties. Their leaders sound like chill people to be around.

They pick them well too mormon boys are hot as fuck

I think there is a way that the book of mormon could be read prophetically as a sort of apocalyptic text about space or time.

>>24636400 (OP)
Read Revelations. Everything is in there. We are at the End Times.

>>24637341
You're an expert who doesn't know that it's called REVELATION (no S)?

>>24637323
my motives are somewhat purer than that

>>24636400 (OP)
Not a Christian it read half of it before meeting with the Mormon kid at their church. Accidentally made them cry with my questions. Man they were persistent too. Anyway, the book itself wasn’t great. Might try reading it again though because I wasn’t as versed in free masonry and occult religions at the time.

Also read half of dianetics, which felt like a tool song - build with no release. Much better than Mormon book though.

>>24637341
You sound like the black ladies at work lol

No one answered the OP.

>>24639034
That's because there are no real Christians. They all got scooped up on jay day. We are the forsaken.

>>24637323
i have seen what their elders do to innocent boys to "baptize" them on the pontube channels so no, i would not become a mormon

>>24636635
Mormonism is kooky, stupid shit, but it's on par for the Bible itself, which is why it kind of gets a free pass. It's just more of same kooky, stupid, unbelievable shit.

>>24639034
I've skimmed through parts of it. It just seemed like OT fanfic. Plus the style of different "prophets" spread out over centuries is remarkably consistent. Almost like one guy wrote it all.

I grew up reading it because I was born into a mormon family. It's a snoozefest and all the really wacky theological innovations are in the other mormon scriptures anyway.
Mormons love to play this "just read it and approach it honestly and ask in faith if its true" game with people, like reading 500 pages of fanfiction.net Old Testament ripoffs will suddenly grant you a visitation from God. I never felt that shit and faked having it even when I still believed, because there was both immense social pressure to do so and because I wanted the worldview I was fed by my entire extended family and social group for 18 years to make sense.

Also, mormons generally do not have systematic approaches to ontology or epistemology, which creates a great deal of underlying/unresolved/unconscious tension for believers.

>>24639170
God bless for dumping that trashy cult, anon. Do they still talk to you or have you been excommunicated?

>>24639170
>all the really wacky theological innovations are in the other mormon scriptures anyway
Which ones are the best value for meme consumption?

>>24639170
In its foundation Mormonism is a romantic understanding Christianity, which is why Harold Bloom said "What Walt Whitman sang, Joseph Smith lived". Highly individualistic in its basis, so its surprisingly consistent with someone like Weininger who says Jesus is the great genius that everyone should follow, taking guilt upon them, with its doctrine of theosis.
>which creates a great deal of underlying/unresolved/unconscious tension for believers
In my experience Mormons, like most Americans, are not intellectual enough for this to matter, most tensions are with brain dead lefty PC stuff, hence r/exmormon. No intellectual culture really, but that's probably expected for an American based religion and as Burton pointed out in the 19th century they never had gentlemen of leisure (essential for culture).
Unfortunately Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is not all that unfair as a depiction of the cultural life of Utah
>>24639252
Watch the Godmakers, but you really should be respectful to original religious revelations.

>>24639280
>>24639252
I mean this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3BqLZ8UoZk
It's miltonic my nigga

>>24636400 (OP)
I did. I got perhaps a third in and it was too laughable to finish. You can barely get past the first few pages if I remember correctly to see how much american exceptionalism brainrot it takes to even humor it. It was so clearly written by retarded mutts unable to cope that jesus was not an american they had to make a gay fanfic.

I couldn't get past the table of contents.
"Book of Ether". Really?

It's funny that you all fit the image of snarky/clever Jews or whoever laughing at the naive fools who believe.
>And I also cast my eyes round about, and beheld, on the other side of the river of water, a great and spacious building; and it stood as it were in the air, high above the earth.
>And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and female; and their manner of dress was exceedingly fine; and they were in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers towards those who had come at and were partaking of the fruit.
>And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed, because of those that were scoffing at them; and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost.

They always talk about their forefathers having been persecuted for their religious beliefs in the old world. Looking at Mornonism and other cults, they were for good reason and Europe should have finished the job.

>>24639252
D&C and the Pearl of Great Price are where you can find all of that. Kolob, magic underwear, plural marriage, etc.
>>24639175
No I never did a formal resignation or anything, I just stopped showing up. My parents got really sad over it but they didn't try to disown me or whatever. More hardcore families, especially in the Utah/Idaho area, do stuff like that though.

My stepmother was a Mormon. We couldn’t really make fun of it because my dad had molested her and married her at 18 to hush it all over with her family.
I used to laugh at all the horses and chariots in precolumbian America.
The Work and The Glory is also good fun, used to flick it open at random points to find funnies. And all the Mormons talk about it like it’s Proust

>>24639280
I’m on welfare, not looking for a job, read the Bible, browse /pol/, informally study languages, geography and history, and watch operas on YouTube in most of my free time.
Am I a gentleman of leisure?

>>24641881
Nowadays there are stronger or at least different anti-cultural forces than a lack of resources for leisure. At the very least a man of leisure, only you can tell us whether you consider yourself a gentleman or not (which is basically how sensitive you are). Recommended from Ruskin:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45913/pg45913-images.html
>4. Gentlemanliness, however, in ordinary parlance, must be taken to signify those qualities which are usually the evidence of high breeding, and which, so far as they can be acquired, it should be every man's effort to acquire; or, if he has them by nature, to preserve and exalt. Vulgarity, on the other hand, will signify qualities usually characteristic of ill-breeding, which, according to his power, it becomes every person's duty to subdue. We have briefly to note what these are.
>5. A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body, which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies—one may say, simply, "fineness of nature." This is, of course, compatible with heroic bodily strength and mental firmness; in fact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy. Elephantine strength may drive its way through a forest and feel no touch of the boughs; but the white skin of Homer's Atrides would have felt a bent rose-leaf, yet subdue its feeling in glow of battle, and behave itself like iron. I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal; but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his non-vulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature; not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot; but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honour.

>>24636400 (OP)
not yet but I imagine it's an up-to-date version of the koran, written by white people for white people
I've read the koran and it's insane... some gems of wisdom there (probably what the "prophet" managed to remember from the Bible stories he have heard) but it's ultimately a hodge-podge collage of second-rate texts peppered with talking shit about anybody who doesn't believe the delusion... "might makes right" to the extreme
no wonder the muslim as a whole are like an idiot going around harassing people and shouting "I am the smartest"... unless somebody kicks the shit out of them he will do so indefinitely, impervious to any rational argument... they are chickenshit cowards who needed a meme-book to feel on par with the people who use language to communicate (because they most definitively don't, they just bark like dogs)
Mormons are a tier above that

>>24639085
>tips fedora

>>24641881
yes
don't believe this fella, motivation will come with the right incentive... no use being a whore if you are a man

>don't believe this fella
meaning >>24641920

>>24636635
tpbp

Read the book yourself. It's pure schizo shit.

>>24642191
You ‘re a faggot

>>24642257
they have a higher birth rate than catholics and unlike catholics they're also constantly evangelizing so it's basically over for papists

>>24639280
Based understanding of Mormonism, it really is the "All American" religion, in that it is native to and a product of the USA, in all its hopes and fears. I find it fascinating as a historical topic.

I'd add that I think Smith was (at least initially, and possibly all the way through) genuinely concerned with bringing people to some kind of faith in Jesus. The burned over district of New York was an intently religious place, but the general milieu of Europe and America was still grappling with Enlightenment rationalism and skepticism paired with new scientific discoveries about the prehistoric past and astronomy (see Byron's Cain: a Mystery for a good example of this anxiety). Mormonism is a product of romanticism, which was itself a reaction against the Enlightenment and French Revolution.

Back to Smith, there is a name for his type: pious fraud. Its so foreign to us that I think modern people can't properly understand what it is without context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4JlJaD2fks

>in the Latter Day Saint movement, the second anointing is the pinnacle ordinance of the temple and an extension of the endowment ceremony. Founder Joseph Smith taught that the function of the ordinance was to ensure salvation, guarantee exaltation, and confer godhood. In the ordinance, a participant is anointed as a "priest and king" or a "priestess and queen", and is sealed to the highest degree of salvation available in Mormon theology
>in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), Mormonism's largest denomination, the ordinance is currently only given in secret to select couples whom top leaders say God has chosen
>instructors in the church's institutes of religion are told, "Do not attempt in any way to discuss or answer questions about the second anointing"

>>24642997
accusing others of your sins I see?

>>24643005
Doesn't matter. Since 2020 their real growth rate has fallen below their own birth rate, meaning the number of converts and children born into the faith isn't enough to counter the number of people leaving. Public cell phone tower records also revealed that the average number of active devices in mormon churches on sundays doesn't nearly match the number of members on record, with some areas likely only seeing as little as a tenth of members on record actually in the pews each week. Every year a stake gets "reorganized" to combine ever-shrinking wards who no longer have enough members to function, and new temple announcements have stopped tracking with sites of genuine membership growth and started tracking with sites of high property value instead. All in all it's a far cry from the "rough stone rolling" and "fastest growing religion" that mormon leaders loved to tout in the 80s through 2010s.

Just a reminder that this >>24643231 has yet to be refuted, and ignoring the Book of Mormon doesn't make it false.

>>24639085
That's a pretty retarded take. The Bible was written in a time when people still believed in fairy tales, it was one of the first structured, and (relatively) organized religious texts that offered a clear and concise view on morals and life while the rest of the world had nothing but loose and ambiguous mumbo jumbo religions to believe in that differed from city to city in the same country.

Mormonism on the other hand was created in a time when the world was much more rational and Christianity had already been perfected for hundreds of years by then.

>>24643324
>perfected
Ah yes they perfected the art of schism and false abrogation

>>24643451
In comparison to everything else at that time, yes, perfected.

>>24643451
Look, the point was that the Bible and implicitly Christianity have always been the top of their game while Mormonism is just a cheap and utterly ridiculous knock off, comparing the two is simply stupid. It's like comparing a Stradivarius to a cheap electric Violin.

>>24643113
I don’t understand why you said “don’t listen to this guy”. There’s just nothing about what I said that would inspire someone to whore themselves in the economy

>>24643492
Mormonism is Christianity, even H. Bloom said Mormonism was most consistent with the Bible (taking consideration Old and New Testaments) … I mean initially, not as much now. They actually tried and succeeded in practicing distributive socialism. Obviously The Book of Mormon is not nearly impressive as the Bible which is one of the greatest books ever. Joseph Smith based everything on the Bible, unlike traditional Christianity which is obviously a precarious fusion with paganism

>>24643519
>Mormonism is Christianity,
bullshit, they don't agree with virtually any christian doctrine from after like 100AD
>even H. Bloom said
a literal who whose opinions do not matter
>precarious fusion
ridiculous assertion usually made by American protestants who don't even know what the difference between worship and veneration is anyway

>>24643519
Yeah, you seem pretty delusional. I'm gonna stop arguing with you.

>>24643533
>>24643534
>don't agree with virtually any christian doctrine from after like 100AD
Jesus died before that, anon
>ridiculous assertion usually made by American protestants who don't even know what the difference between worship and veneration is anyway
This doesn’t have to do with Protestants. There is no Trinity and no omni-God anywhere in the Bible. Which besides is self-contradictory because then he havd to attribute evil to the all-powerful all-loving God himself.
>you seem pretty delusional
You sound hysterical
Not sure why one should allow the usurers of Rome to decide who is a Christian or not

>>24643083
Would be interesting to know what someone like Goethe would make of Smith. He actually would be a very good subject for a play, though it may be too difficult

>>24643546
>This doesn’t have to do with Protestants. There is no Trinity and no omni-God anywhere in the Bible

This is exactly the same type of argument Muslims use, Mormons probably have the same level of intellect as them.

>>24643511
I said "being a whore," not "whore yourself out"
stop jumping to conclusions like a 19 year old Chinese Communist Party member

but yes, I was referring to paragraph 5. where it talks about being preemptively fit... yes it also says that "fitness of nature" is the highest kind, but then he goes on about heroic strength and mental firmness
we are not living in the Victorian times where you had to walk/ride 10 miles a day, and ignore passive-aggressive servants 24/7

>>24643570
Not an argument. The most profound souls who ever lived didn’t believe in the Trinity (Goethe, Beethoven, Wagner)

>>24643570
Actually I'd rate Muslims significantly higher than Mormons in that regard. Muslims developed systems of philosophy that influenced thinkers both Eastern and Western. They contributed to the study of Aristotle and the development of ideas which went on to influence titanic Western thinkers. Regardless of how deeply or shallowly the average Muslim thinks about his faith, his overall religion has space in which intellectualism may develop and systematic thought may flourish.
Mormons, on the other hand, never developed any kind of systematic thought or philosophy during their nearly 200 year history so far, despite having vastly greater access to the writings and thought of prior ages. In fact, they are completely allergic to systematic thought or epistemology, owing to Smith and Young's great distaste for the influence of Greek thought on early Christianity (which they thought was "pagan superstition"). Mormons, by and large, do not think philosophically or even attempt to; their worldview is built around "personal witnesses" which confirm their views, witnesses which are taken to be absolute truth revealed by God, even when in contradiction with logic, experience, or previous prophets and authorities of their own faith. Rigorous philosophy simply goes over their heads; they do not have the necessary organs to process it. You can construct any kind of argument, showing how this claim or that is nonsense, and they'll come back with some tripe about how "the Spirit witnessed to me that it was true" and "God will confound unbelievers" and "trust not your own understanding" and in their minds they'll have won the argument.

>>24643624
The distrust of systematic thought is Nietzschean
>I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. The will to a system, shows a lack of honesty.
You think displays of erudition are some sign of truthfulness when Christianity is supposed simple and therein lies its originality and greatness, its for the poor in spirit. In a sense its Brahmanism for everyone.
The problem with contemporary Mormonism is they are too systematic in their approach (as will be obvious to anyone with experience with Church manuals, the missionary program) and prioritize systematic Church authority over revelation

>>24643624
Notre pale raison nous cache l’infini

They have an ordinance in their temples that "guarantees" to whoever receives it that their place in heaven and godhood are secure, no matter what sins they commit (except "denying the Holy Ghost"). Only a select few couples well-connected with the leadership are invited to receive this ordinance, while the rest of the idiots can spend their entire lives paying tithing and obeying the rules without even knowing it exists. I wish that temple would collapse on top of the general authorities.

The Book of Mormon is to the New Testament like Lost Levels is to Super Mario

>>24643858
The second anointing is basically a fulfillment of the first anointing which everyone receives (for the male "preparatory to being a King and a Priest ..."). I believe under Kimball that preforming this ordinance for more people (who are necessarily well-connected) became more common in the modern Church
>that "guarantees" to whoever receives it that their place in heaven and godhood are secure, no matter what sins they commit (except "denying the Holy Ghost"
I've heard this but I'm not sure why people believe it. It has no doctrinal basis. Satan was an angel who fell from heaven after all.

>>24643875
>doctrinal basis.
The president of the church is considered a prophet and his word is the word of God. I don't think they need any more doctrine than that.

>>24643324
It's more understandable why the Bible was written in its cultural context but seen from today the content is almost equally unbelievable.
It's just that its age gives it more authority in the eyes of some people and some claims are harder to falsify because of the time they supposedly happened in.

>>24643913
I’m asking what your source is for the claim “you can do literally anything but murder or deny the holy ghost”. Nowhere is this said. It’s a misunderstanding of the meaning of the ordinance and how ordinances work in general (they are not abrogatable magic)
>The president of the church is considered a prophet and his word is the word of God.
According to who? Joseph Smith certainly didn’t teach this

>>24643949
>Joseph Smith certainly didn’t teach this
Fucking W I L D claim to make, lmao. The lengths you people will go to make Mormonism seem less retarded crack me up.
Next you'll claim Smith never even claimed the BoM was a real historical record and that other people made up the story about the Angel Moroni after his death.

>>24644055
> Fucking W I L D claim to make, lmao
It's not wild, it's true. Joseph Smith constantly emphasized his fallibility, complained that he was the only person not entitled to a personal opinion. When he had revelations he spoke in entirely different mode, "Thus saith the Lord." It would be something else to be in the room with him when this occurred. No Mormon Presidents besides Smith had revelations in this way, and Brigham Young himself said he wasn't a prophet in the same way that Joseph was. In general Mormon doctrine on the exact meaning of Church authority is vague, but the fundamentalist position you are asserting to be true Mormonism has no substance behind it.
> Next you'll claim Smith never even claimed the BoM was a real historical record and that other people made up the story about the Angel Moroni after his death.
Why would I do that? That's unrelated. Your hysterical rhetoric is sophistic and repulsive.

Infallibility is a Catholic doctrine that has no connection to Mormonism.

>>24644087
Literally every general conference sustains the church president as "prophet, seer, and revelator." That's not even getting into Smith's blatant use of claims of revelation to amass plural wives ("no trust me guys, I totally didn't want this, God had to send an angel to force me to do it at swordpoint, I totally don't want tons of teenage wives haha").
Fuck off with your revisionist shit.

>>24644099
>Literally every general conference sustains the church president as "prophet, seer, and revelator."
All members of the Quorum of the Twelve and first presidency are sustained this, as they were in Smith's time (many of whom were excommunicated). It's of course unclear what exactly "prophet, seer, and revelator" should mean in this context, as I was saying before, especially since in Mormon doctrine all members of the Church, and indeed all members of the human race, have the right to be seers and revelators and prophets.
Anyway, your intentions are obviously evil, so I will no longer be responding to your hysterical evacuations

>>24644117
>o-okay so they are actually called prophets b-but the meaning is unclear bro you cant argue that when they claimed to be receiving revelation from god they actually meant that
>actually its a good thing we define the terms so vaguely because it lets us pull a motte and bailey defense every time someone questions some wack ass shit a mormon authority said
>yeah so smith would tell people shit and bluntly say God himself told him so and recorded a ton of that stuff in what is now seen as mormon scripture (D&C) but he was definitely super fallible and stuff so theres no way we can trust anything he said for sure or make arguments about his claims (unless its the entire book of mormon of course that was super revelatory and infallible and divine and shit)
>y-youre evil!! stop trying to argue with me!!!
Deep down, you know you're defending a pile of shit. Just admit it and save yourself further years of vague unease when a sitting prophet contradicts what a previous one said or trying to pray your doubts away.

>>24644148
I know I said I wasn't going to respond but I'm not an active member of the LDS Church so I don't even know what you're trying to say. There is no doubt that you do serve the Devil, though

nta, but doctrine has certainly changed over time. They used to hate blacks and now blacks are kosher. So somebody, whether a prophet or not, had to make that change.

>>24644228
Originally they considered blacks as equal but after slave owners threatened to kill them over it they changed it for the doctrine of blacks being cursed and only bothered to revert it in like the 70s

>>24644228
>>24644233
I think the main reason was the race mixing especially in regards to temple marriages (and furthermore polygamy). Everything in the temple leads to marriage which is the ultimate ordinance.
>1 In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees;
>2 And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage];
>3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it.
What they were doing, patriarchal polygamy in the West, was already pretty abnormal and it makes sense that they didn't want blacks mixed up in it (no offense to blacks but just think in terms of optics, imagine a black guy in 1860s Utah with a harem of wives, lol.)
Smith was pretty progressive on race issues for his time. It's impossible question how he would have governed the Saints had he made it out West, because I think he was always intended to die young.