MORMONISM ASTRAY
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THE THREE WITNESSES SAID MORMONISM APOSTATE
THE STORY
The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the fastest growing Church in the
world. It traces its origins back to
1830 when a young man called Joseph Smith of
WAS THE EARLY CHURCH MORMON?
The Mormon Church
knows as do all Christian historians that the Roman Catholic doctrine that the
early Church had the same faith as the modern Roman Catholic Church though with
perhaps less developed doctrines is untrue.
The fact is that the most important doctrines of Christianity about the
spirituality of God and the three persons being not three gods but three
persons in one perfect God were never taught before the embryo of Catholicism
was grown at the Nicene Council.
Mormons believe
that there are many Gods and that the gods used to be men. God the Father used to be a man and is now a
resurrected glorified being. His sperm
made Mary pregnant with Jesus. Some
Mormons taught that God had sex with her but now it seems they have adopted the
idea of miraculous sperm implantation to explain the pregnancy
The Mormons say that
when Paul wrote that there are many things called Gods – as indeed there are
gods and lords – for the Church there is only one God (1 Corinthians 8:5,6)
that he supported their doctrine that there are many gods and that God is just
God over this world. But Paul tells us
what he means by God in those verses. He
links the word to creation and having the power to make. All men can make and so are gods in that
sense but there is only one creator God who has made all things through the
timeless Jesus Christ who used God’s power to make all things. This still does not support the Mormon theory
that men can become gods and be God to another world. It is mad to say that the theory is true when
we cannot even prove life on other planets.
There would be no harm in the Mormon God helping us to believe his
gospel by showing us that these planets exist for that would not mean that they
have to have a God over them if he is afraid of proving his gospel. God could prove his gospel to people who
already believe and who want to believe and prevent anybody from being forced by the evidence by making
them mentally blind.
The Churches that
claim that divine tradition is another source of divine revelation in addition
to scripture are wrong for they can see that the best tradition, which
naturally is the earliest for the apostles were the foundation of the Church,
shows that the Early Church believed that the Father alone is fully God, the
Son is a manifestation of the Father but is inferior and the Holy Spirit is
inferior. They were not equals – and the
equals doctrine came in at the Council of Nicea (A Short History of
Christian Thought, Linwood Urban, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995,
page 54). This to me implies that God
cannot be a spirit in the sense of being a being without parts. Because if he were, then the three persons
would have to be equal for otherwise that would mean there was inferiority in
God. This supports the Mormon theory
that divinity is a material being.
Mormons say that the Father and Son and Holy Ghost are three distinct
Gods but who are so close that they are like one God in will and purpose so we
can call them one God. But the
pre-Nicene Trinity might have taught that there were three persons in God but
not three Gods despite believing that God was a material being like a thinking
gas. It would be easier for a material
being to be like that than one indivisible spirit without parts.
Tertullian seems
to have believed that the Trinity was one of three totally separate persons who
were one substance or God but who were not equal – the Father being the supreme
being and the Son inferior and the Spirit inferior to the Son. We have no evidence that Tertullian meant
spirit by this substance but he certainly did accept the Stoical theory that
God was material though not like an exalted man or anything. In Against Hermogenes, Tertullian
held that before anything was made God was not the Father for the Son had not
been made yet. He said that when God
created God became Lord for the first time for now he had something to be Lord
over. He agrees with the Mormon theory
that God lives in time and is subject to time.
Tertullian opposed the Greek philosophical God which is now the God of
the Christian faith and said that the creation of this God which was happening
in his time could only produce a mottled Christianity (see On Prescription
Against Heretics). The Catholic
argument that when Tertullian denied the equality of the persons he only denied
it in the orthodox sense. In other words,
he meant they were unequal as regards origin for the Father exists of himself
and the Son proceeds from him and the Spirit proceeds from both meaning the
Father is like the original and that as persons in power and glory and
knowledge they were equal for there is no imperfection in God. Tertullian certainly thought that God was
perfect. Mormonism teaches that God is
getting better and better all the time and progressing to higher levels of
knowledge and glory.
The Mormons claim
that since Irenaeus said that we must not wonder if there is a God better than
God and superior to him that he was saying that there could be such a God but
that it was not right to speculate. But
what’s the harm in speculation unless you are positive that there is no such
God? Irenaeus made it clear that there
was only one God in whom all knowledge and power subsisted.
It is a big step
from the ancient doctrines of the inequality of the Trinity and the materiality
of God to the Mormon doctrine of God.
There are only a few similarities.
But most Christian perversions have some support in the early Church
somewhere. It is certain however that
the Mormon doctrine of God once being an ordinary sinful man would have been
anathema in the early Church. It is
certain that the doctrine that God has a God above him would also have been
anathema. It contradicts the view that
God the Father is the real God in the divine substance. The early Church did believe that man could
become divine but not in the sense of man becoming God or a God. They believed that the more one became like
God and let God work through her or him the more divinised one becomes. You are a miniature God but still God has all
the power and glory and is to receive all the credit so you are not a real God. There is no evidence for anything like Utah
Mormonism among the sects of the early Church and to argue that Mormonism was
known then just because some Christian scholars misunderstood their theology
and made slip-ups is downright ridiculous.
It is like saying that a seventeenth century Christian child writing in
a diary that God is an old man sitting on a cloud proves that Mormonism was
known then.
The Mormon Church
does not believe in the Bible doctrine of human inability to please God and do
real good works. The early Church did
not believe it either after it got rid of the apostles who were damning
concerning human nature and human goodness and yet we are to believe according
to Mormonism that this was one of the alterations made to the Bible. Why would the Church that did not want to go
that far in slamming human nature make the scriptures go that far? Mormonism even denies the doctrine of
original sin. There is no way the early
Church would have turned away from a God who was an exalted man like the Mormon
god for the pagans would just have loved that doctrine.
For further
information, study the Barry R Bickmore Websites.
A MARVELLOUS WORK?
We are going to
study the apologetic for the Mormon faith given in the book, A Marvellous
Work and a Wonder by LeGrand Richards.
A Catholic’s
argument that said that only Catholicism or Mormonism had a chance of being the
true Church. The Protestants are
excluded because they came from the Catholics and are wrong if Catholics are
wrong. The Catholics can claim to be the
true Church because they have the apostolic doctrine and authority and the
Mormons can claim to be the true Church because they say these blessings were
lost and were restored by God through Joseph Smith (page 3).
The argument is
completely amateurish. It supposes that
the Protestants came from the Catholics but this is not true for the Protestant
religion is based on the Bible which did not come from the Catholics but was
only recognised by the Catholics.
Protestants believe that the early Church was the same as theirs in
belief but most of the Church became the Roman Catholic Church and that the
true faith was preserved by Catholics who did not know of or take in much of
Rome’s heresy and some sects and that the Reformation was the revival of the
true faith: some of the Catholic Church going back to the original Catholic
Church. It is possible for the Catholic
Church to be wrong and for Protestants to make some corrections and become the
true religion and thereby gain apostolic authority and doctrine.
Chapter 2 approves
of Joseph Smith’s first vision story even though it has been proved that the
1820 revival that led to his first vision never happened and that it does not
fit the stories he originally told.
Talmage would have known that such proof existed for he was a Mormon
apostle.
The first vision
has been conclusively proven to be untrue and it is the foundation of
Mormonism. If it is a hoax then nothing
Smith asserted can be trusted and God could not expect us to by giving him
golden plates.
On page 12,
Talmage asserts that when God condemned the worship of idols for they cannot
see or hear or eat or smell (Deuteronomy 4:28) he was saying that he can do
these things for he has a body. But that
is just God’s way of saying that they are not living beings. It does not imply that God is a human being
like Mormons teach. And when nobody
knows what the Christian God who is spirit is like who is to say that he cannot
hear and see and smell without physical senses?
The Christian Church does say that God can sense
The Bible says
that man is made in the image of God which Talmage assumes means that God is a
man (page 15). Support for this is
sought in Genesis 5:3 in which Adam had a son, Seth, who was in Adam’s own
image.
Christians say
that God is a spirit and a personal being and man is a similar kind of being
and supposes that is what is meant by being in the image of God. If the likeness is spiritual, man has a
spirit which has memory understanding and will just like God, then Seth could
have been made in Adam’s own spiritual image.
Wouldn’t it be strange to say that Adam had a son who had a body like
his unless that son was Adam’s double?
The author of Genesis may have meant that the spiritual or whatever
nature God gave Adam was passed on to Seth.
Exodus 24:9-10 and
33:9-11 say that God has feet and that God chatted with Moses like a man speaks
to a mate. The first vision was just a
symbolic picture of God for the Bible says that nobody can really see God and
remain alive. And God could have chatted
without having a body like Moses like two men would.
Page 25 condemns
the notion of one Heaven and one Hell as being inconsistent with God repaying
each person for what they have done.
Mormonism has a temporary Hell for most people and a permanent one for
the hopelessly stubborn handful of sons of perdition. And it has three Heavens. If punishments and rewards mean there can’t
be one Heaven then there cannot be three either and there must be billions of
Heavens. You can have one Heaven and one
Hell with different levels of happiness or despair in each.
Talmage quotes
Isaiah 29:11 to prove that the scholar, Professor Anthon, couldn’t read the
page on which a portion of the untranslated Book of Mormon was written. This made a liar of Smith who just a page
before was quoted as saying that Anthon gave him a certificate to verify that
Smith could miraculously translate the book into English.
Chapter 7 tells us
that the Book of Mormon fulfils bible prophecies. That is so dishonest when the Book claims
that the Bible has been altered by the whore or the Church of the Devil and so
under the guidance of Satan. If Mormon
doctrine had been expunged from the Bible centuries ago then why were the
alleged prophecies that Talmage is thinking of that forecast the restoration of
the gospel and the appearance of a true Bible in the form of the Book of Mormon
taken out?
Jesus said that he
had other sheep to go to who were not part of the fold he was ministering to
and that one day there would be one fold and one shepherd. This is supposed to support the Book of
Mormon’s assertion that Jesus visited America after he ascended to Heaven. The other fold, Talmage says, could not have
been the Gentiles for Jesus said he was sent to Israel alone (Matthew
15:24). The Bible then seems to back up
the Book of Mormon when it says that Jesus went to America to the other fold of
the Jews. In reality, the other fold is
the Gentiles because even though Jesus’ pre-crucifixion ministry was to Jews
only he was to preach to the Gentiles after that. John is telling us the lie that Jesus
appeared among the non-Jews after his resurrection which is disproved by the
fact that the early Church had no interest in preaching to Gentiles until Paul
came along. Never, was it said in the
early Church that Jesus ministered to Gentiles the same way as he did the Jews
or appeared to them.
Isaiah 29:1-4 says
that the city of Ariel or Jerusalem and other unnamed cities will be struck by
the hand of God and will suffer greatly and that it will speak out of the dust
like a familiar spirit out of the ground.
Talmage says this refers to the Book of Mormon for the only way dead
people can speak out of the dust they have become is though the written
word. But Mormonism itself believes that
we can speak out of the dust by appearing to the living after we are dead! The nearest you can get to speaking out of
the dust is by appearing to the living for your spirit has come from a body
that has become dust. Talmage assumes
that the unnamed cities are the Book of Mormon cities. Fanciful!
Talmage says that
Smith translated the Book of Mormon with the Urim and Thummim which stand for
Light and Perfection. These devices were
used by the High Priest in the Bible to get information from the Lord. But the original Book of Mormon was not
perfect proving that the Light and Perfection did not produce it and the Mormon
Church tampered with the text thousands of times over the years to “correct”
it. Today’s, Book of Mormon, contains a
lot of waste of space even though the pretended authors of the book complained that
they couldn’t write too much. Worse, the
whole book has not been translated for two thirds of the Plates were sealed
implying that if they had not been sealed Smith could have read them. So God could not stop the Urim and Thummim
from translating what he wanted kept from Smith! How silly it all is!
The Book of Mormon
records horrific cataclysms that allegedly changed the whole surface of the
American continent. A Washoe Indian
legend is recorded by Talmage in support of this “history”. The legend says that this could have happened
two or three hundred years ago a fact that Talmage conveniently ignores. There was a big flood and the mountain smoked
and the ground shook and there was a mudslide and one day the sun did not come
up. The sun not rising could be taken as
a vague memory of the three days of darkness that America endured when Jesus
died far away (Third Nephi 8). The land
was shook to dust during this time. But
all nations have similar legends. A
volcano is sufficient to explain where this legend came from. The ash blown up into the air could have made
it seem that the sun did not come up.
How dishonest it
is for Talmage to quote the testimony of Dr Willard Richards who concluded that
either God or the Devil wrote the Book of Mormon after reading a few pages for
the first time and the Devil could not have written it. It is not that simple Dr Richards! It could have been a man-made hoax. A man who knows the true word of God could
use that word to make a fake scripture.
Mormonism holds that the devil would do good and write a good book to do
some greater evil. He’d do it and cause
division for example.
On page 104, we
are told that we are born again by Mormon baptism alone. What kind of God is more interested in saving
a person by a rite than by the faith and love in that person? You could be more suitable for God before
baptism than during it.
Talmage argues
that when Micah said that Elijah will come back before the last day he meant
the appearance of that prophet to Joseph Smith in 1836 in Ohio. The other witness was Oliver Cowdery. But would God make a prediction that anybody
could fulfil? I could say I saw
Elijah. God meant a physical return of
Elijah. Visions are no good for even the
Catholic Church considers the vast majority of sightings of Mary to be not
worth investigating.
Talmage argues
that when the thief asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom
and Jesus said he would be in paradise that day with Jesus and paradise was
where souls who were waiting to enter one of Mormonism’s three heavens go. That interpretation is not believable. Jesus is obviously and most likely telling
the man that he will be in his glorious kingdom that day.
Talmage argues
that baptism for the dead was practiced by some in the early Church (page 180).
The Marcionite heretics practiced it.
They were the earliest practitioners we know of. This is no help to the Mormon apologist for
the people were heretics who denies that Jesus had a real body and that God had
anything to do with matter. Mormonism is
the complete opposite with its material God and its material Jesus.
Paul spoke of
those who do baptism for the dead and called them they and not we implying that
it as not a Christian practice. The
Church at Corinth had fallen away from belief in the resurrection and Paul was
saying that there would be no point in baptising for the dead if the dead did
not rise (1 Corinthians 15:29). Talmage
could have argued if he wished that when Paul is trying to convince the people
that the dead will rise he means that he approved of
the practice. Paul was saying that the
dead rise when people are baptised for them.
But this could easily be changed to: he was saying that the dead rise
when people are baptised for them showing they believe that resurrection is
likely the message being that if they could believe it we should as well. That is the true meaning. And no one can prove that baptism for the
dead is right because of it. The Bible
does not teach baptism for the dead because it does not teach that water
baptism saves.
Jesus said that
those in their graves would hear his voice (John
Talmage says that
Jesus saved us partly by grace. The
three main graces are our existence, our being freed from Adam’s sin by Jesus
atoning for it and Jesus’ teaching.
Grace means free gift. The second
contradicts the Mormon doctrine that we can earn salvation. If we are free from Adam’s sin by grace and
have to earn salvation from our own worse sins then surely it would not take
much for us to atone Adam’s sin by ourselves?
God would be evil if he got Adam’s sin atoned and left us to cope with
worse. He must like the terrible sins
better. When God had to get atonement
for Adam’s crime and still grants us a kind of forgiveness for our own sins
then there is something wrong. He seems
to be rewarding our sins though his treatment of Adam’s sin shows us that he
thinks condoning is wrong. The teaching
of Christ is not a grace for it does him more good than us. That is what he gave it for. A gift is given out of kindness and not
selfishness. Anything else is just a
bait.
Talmage says that
the Mormon rule banning the taking of alcohol, tobacco and coffee and tea is
very wise. There is no harm in small
amounts of these things. Why didn’t the
Mormons make it a sin to drink water with fluoride in it or make it a sin to
drive fast in a car? The Word of Wisdom
only shows how unintelligent and untruthful the God of Mormonism is.
And tithing is a
divine command in Mormonism (Doctrine and Covenants, 119). One tenth of your income has to be given to
the Church if you are a Mormon. Does
this not sound like letting oneself be used by a money-grabbing religion? You never get the surplus money back and
temples and books and chapels are not as cheap as they could be. Mormon missionaries spread the word with
their own money which is alarming when the Church is so rich.
IRA T RANSOM
Here is a synopsis
of the good questions that Mormons cannot answer in the booklet, Ask Your
Bishop by Ira T Ransom. My own
observations and comments are interspersed.
1. The law of progression from manhood to
godhood is supposed to be unchangeable and was in existence even before God
became God so you have to be a man before you can be a God. Yet Jesus was born a God and not just a man
and the Holy Spirit is a God though he never took a body.
4. The Book of Mormon cannot be the fullness of
the gospel when it did not teach this law of progression. Mormons say we should be satisfied that the
Book of Mormon teaches enough for salvation but not all. But God is supposed to have sent us to earth
to try and make gods of us. But only
those who know the Mormon doctrines that are not in the Book of Mormon can
succeed. The Book of Mormon never speaks
of an infallible prophet or Church that is to supplement the gospel so the
Mormons cannot say the Book of Mormon contains the gospel not explicitly but implicitly by directing us to
the Mormon Church for salvation.
12. Smith stated in Doctrine and Covenants 84
that no man can see God and live. Yet he
said later that he saw God in 1820!
Mormons say that Doctrine and Covenants only means that those who have
no priesthood and authority to see God cannot look on him and live. But Doctrine and Covenants does not say that
so how could it mean that?
17. The Mormon Church uses water instead of wine
for communion. The early Church
according to both the Bible and the Book of Mormon used wine. Water is not a good picture of blood. And why would anybody want to make the Bible
say it had to be wine when the original said water? Mormons blame all differences between their
religion and the Bible as we now have it on the corruption of the Bible.
21. Mormonism says the Bible is translated
wrong. Why then don’t their prophets
produce a complete and corrected Bible by the power of God which they say they
can do?
23. Brigham Young’s Journal of Discourses
stated that Jesus was married to Martha and Mary at
28. Shows that according to an older edition of
the Church History Smith still preached against polygamy in October 1843
despite the infamous revelation of July that year that commanded it. Mormons might say he only forbade unauthorised
polygamy. The Church says that only
those who were holy enough to become gods were allowed to practice plural
marriage. Adam had only one wife and it
is too much to believe that the Roman Church would have thought of making that
up and changing the Bible. Besides, the
Jewish Bible says the same and the Jews were pro-polygamy.
43. Despite teaching that the apostle John is
still alive on earth the Church has its own twelve apostles and this makes
thirteen apostles. And why can’t John lead
the Mormon Church? What evidence is
there that John is preaching Mormonism?
46-48. Smith failed to see that Esaias and Isaiah
were the same person. And also that
Elijah and Elias were the same. He did
not know that the difference in names was due to translation and he split
Isaiah into Isaiah and Esaias. He split
Elijah into Elijah and Elias! He even
claimed that Elijah and Elias appeared as two people in the
50. Mormon apostles have denied that Mormonism
used to teach that certain people had to be murdered in a bloody way to atone
their sins. But it’s in Young’s Journal
of Discourses, Vol 3, 247. The
Mormon Church tells lies.
61. Mormons ignore
the restrictions of meat eating in the word of wisdom (Doctrine and Covenants,
89).
63. 3913 changes have been made by the Church in
the Book of Mormon apart from correction of punctuation. The Mormon often says he believes the Book of
Mormon because God has told him so. The
question is, what Book of Mormon?
92.
THE THREE
WITNESSES SAID MORMONISM APOSTATE
The three main
witnesses who testified that Smith had the gold plates and was empowered by God
to translate were Martin Harris, David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery. References are from The Case Against
Mormonism, Vol Two).
Martin Harris
stated that the Mormons were frauds (page 30).
David Whitmer was
told by the voice of God to depart from the Latter-day Saints and he said he
was as sure of this as he was that God told him the Book of Mormon was inspired
to leave the Latter-day Saints. He was chosen
by God to lead the Church if Joseph should die in 1834 (page 22). God told Whitmer in a revelation that the
Mormons had indulged in all manner of evil and deceit that the people of the
world had never committed (page 24). The
world was guilty of false religion and changing scriptures according to the
Book of Mormon so could it be that the Mormon Church was based on a false Book
of Mormon? Hiram Page and Jacob, John
and David Whitmer all joined David’s Church and accused Smith of apostasy (page
25). David seemed to hold that all Smith
could do supernaturally was translate the Book of Mormon (page 26). Whitmer was known as a man of complete
honesty by his neighbours when he lived in
The Mormons
sometimes claim that when Whitmer was told by God in 1838 to separate himself
from the Latter-day Saints that since he had already been excommunicated the
revelation was not telling him that the Latter-day Saint movement was untrue
and to leave it for he was not part of it but to keep away from the Latter-day
Saints at Far West in case he would corrupt them. They have to say this because Whitmer was one
of the three supreme witnesses to the Book of Mormon and he said that this
voice was as sure as the voice that told him the Book of Mormon was true. But Whitmer always interpreted the revelation
as telling him to keep away from the Mormon Church for it and its prophet
Joseph had apostatised. God would not
have misled Whitmer or risked misleading him.
The Mormon Church should say then that Whitmer was a false prophet for
only false prophets get revelations they can misunderstand or they should say
he lied about God’s voice. But they dare
not say either for that would mean that God went to the bother of appointing a
man lacking in integrity in religion as a main witness to the Book of Mormon. The Mormons instead of saying that the
revelation supports Mormonism should see that if it is ambiguous then they have
no right to say it supports their faith for they do not know.
All three
witnesses accused Joseph Smith of being a fallen prophet (page 10).
Smith originally
taught that there was one God and marriage should be monogamous and
contradicted these doctrines with new revelations later. He even went as far as to alter his own
revelations. The witnesses therefore were
telling the truth about Mormonism not being the true religion.
THE BOOK REFUTES MORMONISM
The Book of Mormon
firmly teaches monotheism and says that there is no God but one (
Under the second
Prophet of the Church, Brigham Young, it was taught that God the Father was
none other than Adam. He said that Adam
was the only god with whom we have anything to do (Journal of Discourses
1, 50). The Mormon Church now says that
since Adam was the first man and started off the human race he is the only god
with whom we have to do in this sense but he is not God the Father. But Brigham complained that the Church could
not accept the doctrine that God had revealed to him about Adam (page 70, Mormonism,
Mama and Me) which would only be a problem if he believed that Adam and God
the Father were the same. In Deseret
Weekly News,
Brigham said that
everybody on earth would soon know that Adam was God the Father. The Church says that this does not mean that
the Adam God doctrine was being made official doctrine. But it must have been when it would have to
be stressed like that. You are not going
to plan to let everybody know that Adam is God if it is not official doctrine
for there is enough to teach people without that complication if it is not
official doctrine. He said later that
the subject of Adam God did not concern the immediate welfare of the people
(HDC, April 25th, 1855). But
that might only mean that other things needed stressing for the people had
problems accepting the doctrine. The
Mormons say that if Brigham as a private person not as Prophet of the Church
mistakenly thought that God the Father was Adam he is not saying that Adam is
God but making a minor mistake thinking that God came to earth as Adam. They say if there is an error it is about
what God has done not who God is.
Mormons wouldn’t be so understanding if the pope claimed to have left
his body and was replaced by God. It is
still idolatry. To say that the Father
came to the earth as Adam is to say he sinned and even the Book of Mormon says
that Adam sinned. Yet Mormonism believes
that when God made the world he was purified and no sin could attract him. To identify God and Adam is to blaspheme
God.
One wonders how
God the Father could have accepted worship coming from people who did not
intend to worship Adam. Such an
important doctrine would have been revealed earlier in the Church and by Joseph
Smith. When Smith revealed that God was
an exalted man in the King Follett Discourse he said that Adam was made
in his image and likeness (page 181, Mormonism, Mama and Me). So it was revealed to Smith that God made
Adam and that Adam was not God.
The Church teaches
that an apostate priest or Prophet cannot continue the true Church or be a part
of it. The Mormon Prophet, Spencer W
Kimball who said that the Adam God doctrine was heresy and pretends it was not taught
by Brigham Young got his priesthood in a line that stretches back to Brigham
Young (page 74, Mormonism, Mama and Me).
Joseph Smith produced an Inspired Version of the Bible that accepted
what Deuteronomy 18 says about false prophets, that if they err even in one small
revelation they are to be abandoned and murdered. The Mormon Church cannot be the true or right
Church when it is led by false prophets.
The Mormon Church
believes that some sins are so bad that one can only atone for them by dying
and spilling blood in doing so. Brigham
Young who claimed that his works were equal to scripture and who was the
Prophet of the Church said that thieves should be murdered on the spot (Journal
of Discourses, Volume I or Mormonism, Mama and Me page 121). The Book of Mormon mentions the deaths of
Nehor and Zemnarihah but never says they were killed for this reason or that
God approved if they were or that God approved at all though Brigham says they
were – that is adding to God’s word.
He’s forcing an alien interpretation on it. Laman who was slain by Nephi was killed to
prevent the nation dwindling in heresy and scepticism (1 Nephi
The Book of Mormon
says that God will show its readers that it is true (
THE REORGANISED
CHURCH
Many Mormons felt
that Brigham Young who was Smith’s successor was a false prophet and did not
recognise him. Some of these persuaded
Joseph Smith’s son, Joseph Smith III to become the new prophet and this took
place on
This Church has a
progressive outlook towards theology and unlike the
This Church holds
that the Book of Abraham is not scripture.
The evidence they have that the Book of Abraham is fiction is that it
says there are many Gods while the Book of Mormon and the Bible say there is
only one God. The Church maintains
without evidence that Smith was only trying to translate from Egyptian the
natural way and was not claiming divine inspiration for his translation. First of all there were several testimonies
from Mormon believers that Smith used the Urim and Thummim to translate it
(page 182, The Case Against Mormonism).
These items were for enabling God to help you translate so the Church is
deluding itself. Plus the book deals
with revelations from Heaven to Abraham and it is impossible to believe that
Smith would not have considered this book to be scripture. Even if he didn’t he was still giving false
revelations. Smith was not using manuals
or anything to translate so he was either making it up or he thought the
meaning was coming into his head through divine or psychic powers. The Church is refusing to regard a false
scripture as evidence that Smith was a fraud.
Some in this Church
hold that the Book of Abraham is not scripture for it was written after Smith
had been led astray and so he could not have had his prophetic ability at the
time. They draw parallels with David and
Solomon and Jonah and Judas and Moses to show that prophets sometimes do go
astray.
The Church like
the
The good thing
about this Church is that it shows that the Mormon Church in
There is a sect that follows the Book of Mormon called the
CONCLUSION
Mormonism can look
very convincing when you have one side of the story and I give the Church
credit for ingenuity in devising its apologetics. But there are fatal blunders in the entire
system. The system depends too much on
speculation to have credibility when the truth is that only a religious system
with the fewest problems that need speculation to solve it should be accepted. Remember Occam’s Razor. A system that is too hard to defend against
fair and understandable criticisms is not from God. Mormonism to me is a warning about how
dangerous religion is for this is a religion that has no credibility and lies
and cheats to get converts and it gets away with it,,
BOOKS CONSULTED
A GATHERING OF
SAINTS, Robert Lindsay, Corgi,
A MARVELLOUS WORK
AND A WONDER, LeGrand Richards,
AN ADDRESS TO ALL
BELIEVERS IN CHRIST, David Whitmer, Board of Publications of The Church of
Christ with the Elijah Message, Lacy Road, Independence, Missouri
ARE THE MORMON
SCRIPTURES RELIABLE? Harry L Ropp, IVP,
ASK YOUR BISHOP,
Ira T Ransom, 317 W 7th South,
CHANGES IN JOSEPH
SMITH’S HISTORY, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1965
CHANGING OF THE
REVELATIONS, Apostle Daniel McGregor,
GOD’S WORD FINAL
INFALLIBLE AND FOREVER, Floyd C McElveen, Gospel Truth Ministries, Grand
Rapids, 1985
CONCISE GUIDE TO
TODAY’S RELIGIONS, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press, Bucks,
1983
HOW TO ANSWER A
MORMON, Robert A Morey, Bethany House Publishers,
JOSEPH SMITH AND
MONEY DIGGING, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1970
JOSEPH SMITH’S
BAINBRIDGE NY COURT TRIALS, Wesley P Walters, Utah Lighthouse Ministry,
LARSON’S BOOK OF
CULTS, Bob Larson, Tyndale,
LEAVING THE SAINTS, Martha Beck, Portrait, London, 2005
NO MAN KNOWS MY HISTORY, Fawn M Brodie, Vintage, New York, 1995
MORMONISM SHADOW
OR REALITY? Jerald and Sandra Tanner,
Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1972
MORMONISM, AA
Hoekema, Paternoster Press,
MORMONISM, MAGIC
AND MASONRY, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1988
MORMONISM, MAMA
AND ME, Thelma Geer,
MORMONISM, THE
PROPHET, THE BOOK AND THE CULT, Peter Bartley, Veritas,
NEW LIGHT ON
MORMON ORIGINS, Rev Wesley P Walters,
SOME MODERN
FAITHS, Maurice C Burrell and J
THE BOOK OF
COMMANDMENTS,
THE BOOK OF
MORMON, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Deseret Enterprises
Ltd, Manchester, UK, 1972
THE CASE AGAINST
MORMONISM, VOL 2, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1968
THE FACTS OF
MORMONISM ARE STRANGER THAN FICTION, Charles Crane and J Edward Decker,
Christian Information Outreach,
THE HUMAN ORIGIN
OF THE BOOK OF MORMON, Wesley P Walters, Ex-Mormons for
WHY THE
THE WEB
FULFILLED
PROPHECIES OF JOSEPH SMITH
www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_prophecies.shtml
THE BOOK OF MORMON
WITNESSES
Excellent
refutation of the claims of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon
JOSEPH SMITH AS A
PROPHET by Richard Packham
Refutes the Mormon
claim that Smith was a real prophet of God.
The Mormons accept the validity of Ezekiel 12:21-28 which says that if a
prophecy is too long in being fulfilled then it is a false prophecy. A prophecy will come true by chance given
long enough. Smith made many prophecies
that have not come true yet so he was a false prophet. By the same criteria, the Old Testament
prophets failed and the Christian claim that they predicted Jesus and his life
by the power of God is false for even if the prophecies did come true it was
not God that was behind it. Doctrine and
Covenants 1:37 pledges that every word prophesised by Smith will come true for
God has spoken. On
JERALD AND SANDRA
TANNER’S DISTORTED VIEW OF MORMONISM: A RESPONSE TO MORMONISM, SHADOW OR
REALITY?
www.xmission.com/~country/reason/ldshist1.htm
This page shows plainly the harm that the Christian Church in general is doing
with its rotten Bible for the evil commanded by God in the Bible is defended on
the basis that it has a purpose known to God and this is used to justify the
terrible doctrines such as polygamy that the Mormons used to live out. The page does what all apologists for
religion does, ignore the major problems and nitpicks on rather minor errors in
the hope of showing the critics to be not worth listening to. For example, the Tanners believed that Joseph
Smith copied his father’s story of a dream he had in 1811 into the Book of
Mormon as the dream of Lehi because Joseph’s mother Lucy wrote about the dream
in 1845 and the two were identical in all serious points. The page says that Lucy Smith simply filled
in her memory of her husband’s dream subconsciously from the Book of Mormon. But she had family and friends to help her
remember. The page says that since the
Book of Mormon was written first and she was writing 15 years later it is wrong
to say that the author of the Book of Mormon was the one doing the copying. But how do you know? It is still most probable that the Tanners are
right. If it is not then we still have
no reason to take one side or the other.
Anyway, what about the more serious objections to the Book of Mormon
that the Tanners made? He’s
nitpicking.
The page says that
since the
BY HIS OWN HAND ON
PAPYRUS, Charles Larson
At Mormons in
Transition Website www.irr.org
MORE PROBLEMS WITH
THE FIRST VISION, ANSWERING DR CLANDESTINE, Jerald and Sandra Tanner
www.xmission.com/~country/reason/clndst10.htm
PHILOSOPHICAL
PROBLEMS WITH THE MORMON CONCEPT OF GOD, Francis J Beckwith,
Barry R
Bickmore
www.geocities.com/Athens/parthenon/2671/EC.html
MORMON
SCHOLARSHIP, APOLOGETICS AND EVANGELICAL NEGLECT, Carl Mosser and Paul
Owen,
www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/cpoint10-2.html#mosserowen
BOOK OF MORMON
QUESTIONS
www.lds-mormon.com/bookofmormonquestions.shtml
MORMONISM
UNVAILED: MORE EVIDENCE THAT IT IS TRUE.
Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
www.carm.org/lds/unveiled_defended.htm
THE ABRIDGEMENT OF
D&C 137
www.saintsalive./com/mormonism/falseprophetjs/htm
THE BOOK OF
MORMON: ONE TOO MANY M’S Stephen Van Eck
www.infidels.org/library/modern/stephen_eck/toomany.html
EGYPTIAN
CHARACTERS
www.mormonstudies.com/seer2.htm
This shows that
when Smith translated the book of Abraham he invented hieroglyphics where there
was a piece missing from the papyri. The
characters Smith added make no sense to translators. Yet he translated these imaginary
hieroglyphics! His mother and close
associate David Whitmer spoke of Joseph copying characters of the gold plates
of the Book of Mormon before he translated and that like the Book of Abraham
Smith often produced two lines in the manuscript with the translation of a
single character which shows that the whole Book of Mormon thing was a hoax.
MORMON FARMS
www.xmission.com~country/reason/farms_1.htm
by Jerald and
Sandra Tanner. Gathers evidence that
indicates that it was possible that Smith was insane and had manic
depression.
DR CHARLES ANTHON
RE AUTHENTICITY OF WRITING SAMPLES ALLEGEDLY COPIED FROM THE GOLDEN PLATES
www.mormonism-web.com/anthon.htm
INTERVIEW OF
MARTIN HARRIS
www.xmission.com/~research/about/docum4.htm
COMMENTS ON THE
BOOK OF MORMON WITNESSES: A RESPONSE TO JERALD AND SANDRA TANNER
www.mormons.org/response/bom/witnesses_Roper.htm
A ridiculous
rebuttal that has been taken into account for this book and refuted.
FACTS ON THE BOOK
OF MORMON WITNESSES, PART 1
Excellent
refutation of the reliability of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon
THE STOLEN
MANUSCRIPT
www.utlm.org/onlineresources/bom_early_problems/goldenbible_stolenmanuscript.htm
17 February 2008