You're going to have to ask the people who live there.
Joseph Smith taught that the moon was inhabited by people that live to be 1000 years old?
- Thread starter sirkickyass
- Start date
You're going to have to ask the people who live there.
PearlWatson
Well-Known Member
I found no evidence to suggest that the initial missionaries were converted on the force of Joseph's charisma as you claimed. Beans statements about the conversions revolving around the Book of Mormon seem to hold much more water from the conversion stories I read.
Duck Rodgers
Well-Known Member
I am interested in the theory that the LDS religion was made by Freemasons to better the world :/. I am seriously interested in becoming a Freemason in the future. Even made a picture for it using microsoft paint
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You should read the Manly P Hall books on Freemasonry if you haven't. They are huge, but worth it if you are really interested in that stuff. The problem with your "Allah" compass is that Masons believe in Osiris, Isis, Apollo, and ultimately that they themselves can be Gods. The 'all Gods are welcome' thing is a ruse.
But it is prohibited by their religion just as booze and cigs are prohibited by yours.
When the "Jazz" moved to Utah, a lot of folks wondered how Utah could even think of keeping that "Jazz" name. Utah has a reputation. . . had a reputation. . . . as the ultimate hickville on the ultimate backroad cut off from all progress. . . . and fun. . . .
but it was a stroke of genius to keep that name. . . . just like me using "babe" when I'm the oldest member on this board. . . .
Because it's attitude that really counts, not what others expect. You go out and just be the best.
Same thing with Mormons.
Beantown
Well-Known Member
No argument there, but its not on the same level as someone stopping an addictive daily habit.
This is no more crazy than the Bible claiming that people lived to be 500-1000 years old back in the good old days of no medicine.
I remember being lectured by my half-sister's Jehovah's Witness grandmother about how man was doomed and how people lived to be 800 in the Bible. And she actually believed that stuff. Though I knew at that point to just politely smile and recognize that she wasn't to be taken seriously anymore.
I remember being lectured by my half-sister's Jehovah's Witness grandmother about how man was doomed and how people lived to be 800 in the Bible. And she actually believed that stuff. Though I knew at that point to just politely smile and recognize that she wasn't to be taken seriously anymore.
True. And your kid's birthdays are just once a year, as are Christmas, Halloween, Easter, etc.
Besides, as has been mentioned on this forum, you don't have to give up caffeine or even coffee, as long as it's not made with hot water. Nice try, though.
Wow, so you're saying the people newly converted to the religion talked about how good the religion was, and didn't say they were following some guy? I'm shocked, just shocked.
Honestly, I don't really care what you people tell yourselves about how unique your religion was. Why do you care so much about my opinion? If you don't, why try to hard to convince me?
Pearl is not LDS. Don't know if she wants me saying that, don't even know if she has decided to be LDS since oh mayber a couple of years ago when she said she wasn't. Don't care.
When I was an LDS missionary, we had a big picture of Joseph Fielding Smith in our little briefcases. We'd pull it out, point to it, and in broken pidgin English try to say "Prophet" so people could understand. I even used various filipino dialects, "Ang Propeta ng Diyos, Nayon." What it amounted to was something akin to idolatry, so far as the people we were talking to could surmise. Almost invariably, there was a little corner "Novena" in the living room or a bedroom in the house, where prayers were said to the Virgin Mary, or some other revered intercessor. The LDS believed those Novenas were idolatrous, and it would just have been those peoples' idea of things to pray to a picture of a Prophet. In the books of Moses, The Law, God said His people should reverence Him only, because He was a jealous God, and forbade having anything in our worship but Him. No government, no man, no organization. . . . . and, inferentially, no Virgin Mary or Saint or Apostle.
In my study of early Mormon conversions, there are many people who were truly charmed by Joseph Smith Jr., who knew upon meeting him, that he was a true prophet. Whether that is idolatry of any kind actually depends upon the fact, and whether it is--- in a persons' mind and heart---, a fact that precedes, or derives from, their actual focus on God. If the mind and heart take the person or information as secondary to their faith in God, I think it's no different from the way the Israelites understood Moses.
Well, let's just say the way the best of the Israelites understood Moses. I'm sure many people then had the same little stumbling stones of misplaced reverence for leaders as many of us do today.
The Black Swordsman
Well-Known Member
At the end of the day most people don't really care what other people believe. They just want to know what you believe in so they have validation for what they themselves believe. This is true for theists as well as atheists. I don't care what others believe in.
PearlWatson
Well-Known Member
I wondered about the charisma theory proposed in this thread by a few people, including you, so I looked into it to see if it had any credence. I didn't find any, especially considering the large amount of converts who never met Joseph until after committing to leave their homes and crossing an ocean to start anew. I even read one account of people meeting him and finding him not serious enough to be a prophet so they left.
I also think that the idea/belief that they were following a prophet that talked on behalf of God was more a factor than any "charisma" of the man acting in that capacity, although the 2 things are entangled.