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Can Mormons Question Their Faith Publically?
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The recent Disfellowshipment of Grant Palmer (Author of An Insider's View Of Mormon Origins) shows that Mormons are not allowed to question their faith publically. If they do they will be subject to Church Discipline and possibly sent to "Church Courts Of Love" where their membership (and keys to salvation) can be revoked.
Here are some teachings from the church that are likely having an influence on Mormons who want to question the Church's authenticity or validity.:
"My duty as a member of the Council of the Twelve is to protect what is most unique about the LDS church, namely the authority of priesthood, testimony regarding the restoration of the gospel, and the divine mission of the Savior. Everything may be sacrificed in order to maintain the integrity of those essential facts. Thus, if [the book] Mormon Enigma reveals information that is detrimental to the reputation of Joseph Smith, then it is necessary to try to limit its influence and that of its authors."
- Apostle Dallin Oaks, footnote 28, Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith: Psychobiography and the Book of Mormon, Introduction p. xliii
"You seminary teachers and some of you institute and BYU men will be teaching the history of the Church this school year. This is an unparalleled opportunity in the lives of your students to increase their faith and testimony of the divinity of this work. Your objective should be that they will see the hand of the Lord in every hour and every moment of the Church from its beginning till now."
"Church history can be so interesting and so inspiring as to be a very powerful tool indeed for building faith. If not properly written or properly taught, it may be a faith destroyer."
"There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not."
"Some things that are true are not very useful."
"That historian or scholar who delights in pointing out the weaknesses and frailties of present or past leaders destroys faith. A destroyer of faith - particularly one within the Church, and more particularly one who is employed specifically to build faith - places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master, and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities. ... Do not spread disease germs!"
- Apostle Boyd K. Packer, "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect", 1981, BYU Studies, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 259-271
"Indeed, in some instances, the merciful companion to truth is silence. Some truths are best left unsaid."
"Any who are tempted to rake through the annals of history, to use truth unrighteously, or to dig up facts with the intent to defame or destroy, should hearken to this warning of scripture:"
"The righteousness of God [is] revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." (Rom. 1:17-18.)
"I repeat: 'The wrath of God is . against all . who hold the truth in unrighteousness.'"
"To anyone who, because of truth, may be tempted to become a dissenter against the Lord and his anointed, weigh carefully your action in light of this sacred scripture:"
"These dissenters, having the same instruction and the same information . yea, having been instructed in the same knowledge of the Lord, nevertheless, it is strange to relate, not long after their dissensions they became more hardened and impenitent, and . wicked, . entirely forgetting the Lord their God." (Alma 47:36.)
"We must realize that we are at war. The war began before the world was and will continue. The forces of the adversary are extant upon the earth. All of our virtuous motives, if transmitted only by inertia and timidity, are no match for the resolute wickedness of those who oppose us."
- Apostle Russell M. Nelson, "Truth-and More," Ensign, Jan. 1986, page 69
"We can have a certain testimony that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and Redeemer of mankind, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet commissioned to restore the Church in our day and time without having a complete understanding of all gospel principles. But when you pick up a stick you pick up both ends. And so it is with the gospel. As members of the Church we need to accept all of it."
- Elder James E. Faust, October General Conference 2003, Saturday Morning Session
"There are the so-called learned people who have let their intellect undermine their spiritual moorings and who would also attempt to lead the faithful away from those who are appointed by the Lord to lead. There are those who feel that our leaders are out of touch with the realities of the day. They would attempt to lead members by substituting their own knowledge for the revelations from God to His prophets. And unfortunately there are those who would so follow. Christ warned, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." (Matt. 7:15.)"
- Elder Richard C. Edgley, "Keep the Faith," Ensign, May 1993, page 11, also LDS Church News, February 10, 1996
"Some people exalt themselves above God and His annointed servants because of their learning and scholarly achievements. We must never allow our intellect to take priority over our spirit. Our intellect can feed our spirit and our spirit can feed our intellect, but if we allow our intellect to take precedence over our spirit, we stumble, find fault, and may even lose our testimonies."
-Apostle Joseph B. Wirthlin. October 2004 General Conference.
"Brethren, the Church is true. Those who lead it have only one desire, and that is to do the will of the Lord. They seek his direction in all things. There is not a decision of significance affecting the Church and its people that is made without prayerful consideration, going to the fount of all wisdom for direction. Follow the leadership of the Church. God will not let his work be led astray. Brethren, if we live worthy of his inspiration, there will never be doubt in our minds concerning the truth of this work and the great mission of this kingdom."
- President Gordon B. Hinckley, "Be Not Deceived," Ensign, Nov. 1983, page 44
"This is His work. He established it. He has revealed its doctrine. He has outlined its practices. He created its government. It is His work and His kingdom, and He has said, "They who are not for me are against me" (2 Nephi 10:16)."
"How grateful, my brethren, I feel, how profoundly grateful for the tremendous faith of so many Latter-day Saints who, when facing a major decision on which the Church has taken a stand, align themselves with that position. And I am especially grateful to be able to say that among those who are loyal are men and women of achievement, of accomplishment, of education, of influence, of strength-highly intelligent and capable individuals."
"Each of us has to face the matter-either the Church is true, or it is a fraud. There is no middle ground. It is the Church and kingdom of God, or it is nothing."
- President Gordon B. Hinckley. "Loyalty," April Conference, 2003.
"But no child in this Church should be left with uncertainty about his or her parents' devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Restoration of His Church, and the reality of living prophets and apostles who, now as in earlier days, lead that Church according to "the will of the Lord, . . . the mind of the Lord, . . . the word of the Lord, . . . and the power of God unto salvation." In such basic matters of faith, prophets do not apologize for requesting unity, indeed conformity, in the eloquent sense that the Prophet Joseph Smith used that latter word. In any case, as Elder Neal Maxwell once said to me in a hallway conversation, "There didn't seem to be any problem with conformity the day the Red Sea opened."
"What a classic example of the warning Elder Richard L. Evans once gave. Said he: "Sometimes some parents mistakenly feel that they can relax a little as to conduct and conformity or take perhaps a so called liberal view of basic and fundamental things-thinking that a little laxness or indulgence won't matter-or they may fail to teach or to attend Church, or may voice critical views. Some parents . . . seem to feel that they can ease up a little on the fundamentals without affecting their family or their family's future. But," he observed, "if a parent goes a little off course, the children are likely to exceed the parent's example."
"To lead a child (or anyone else!), even inadvertently, away from faithfulness, away from loyalty and bedrock belief simply because we want to be clever or independent is license no parent nor any other person has ever been given. In matters of religion a skeptical mind is not a higher manifestation of virtue than is a believing heart, and analytical deconstruction in the field of, say, literary fiction can be just plain old-fashioned destruction when transferred to families yearning for faith at home. And such a deviation from the true course can be deceptively slow and subtle in its impact. As one observer said, "If you raise the temperature of my bath water only 1 degree every 10 minutes, how will I know when to scream?"
- Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, General Conference, Sunday Arpil 6th 2003
"Let me quote a very powerful comment from President Ezra Taft Benson, who said, "The Book of Mormon is the keystone of [our] testimony. Just as the arch crumbles if the keystone is removed, so does all the Church stand or fall with the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The enemies of the Church understand this clearly. This is why they go to such great lengths to try to disprove the Book of Mormon, for if it can be discredited, the Prophet Joseph Smith goes with it. So does our claim to priesthood keys, and revelation, and the restored Church..."
"To hear someone so remarkable say something so tremendously bold, so overwhelming in its implications, that everything in the Church - everything - rises or falls on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and, by implication, the Prophet Joseph Smith's account of how it came forth, can be a little breathtaking. It sounds like a "sudden death" proposition to me. Either the Book of Mormon is what the Prophet Joseph said it is or this Church and its founder are false, fraudulent, a deception from the first instance onward."
"Either Joseph Smith was the prophet he said he was, who, [1]after seeing the Father and the Son, [2]later beheld the angel Moroni, [3]repeatedly heard counsel from his lips, eventually [4]receiving at his hands a set of ancient gold plates which [5]he then translated according to the gift and power of God-or else he did not. And if he did not, in the spirit of President Benson's comment, he is not entitled to retain even the reputation of New England folk hero or well-meaning young man or writer of remarkable fiction. No, and he is not entitled to be considered a great teacher or a quintessential American prophet or the creator of great wisdom literature. If he lied about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, he is certainly none of those."
"I am suggesting that we make exactly that same kind of do-or-die, bold assertion about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the divine origins of the Book of Mormon. We have to. Reason and rightness require it. Accept Joseph Smith as a prophet and the book as the miraculously revealed and revered word of the Lord it is or else consign both man and book to Hades for the devastating deception of it all, but let's not have any bizarre middle ground about the wonderful contours of a young boy's imagination or his remarkable facility for turning a literary phrase. That is an unacceptable position to take-morally, literarily, historically, or theologically."
- Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, "True or False," New Era, June 1995, Page 64 (Excerpted from a CES Symposium address given at Brigham Young University on August 9, 1994.)
"Our entire case as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rests on the validity of this glorious First Vision. ... Nothing on which we base our doctrine, nothing we teach, nothing we live by is of greater importance than this initial declaration. I submit that if Joseph Smith talked with God the Father and His Beloved Son, then all else of which he spoke is true. This is the hinge on which turns the gate that leads to the path of salvation and eternal life."
- Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign Mag., Nov. 1998, pp.70-71
"As I see it, there are four great foundation stones on which this Church stands, irremovable. The first, the great First Vision, the visit of the Father and the Son to the boy Joseph Smith, the opening of the heavens in this the dispensation of the fulness of times, the great bringing together of all of the work of God in all the past dispensations throughout the history of the world. The curtain was parted with that First Vision, and it stands as an absolute fundamental in the Church and its history and its well-being."
- Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, Aug. 1998, 72
"We declare without equivocation that God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, appeared in person to the boy Joseph Smith. When I was interviewed by Mike Wallace on the 60 Minutes program, he asked me if I actually believed that. I replied, "Yes, sir. That's the miracle of it." That is the way I feel about it. Our whole strength rests on the validity of that vision. It either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud. If it did, then it is the most important and wonderful work under the heavens."
"Upon that unique and wonderful experience stands the validity of this Church."
"That They came, both of Them, that Joseph saw Them in Their resplendent glory, that They spoke to him and that he heard and recorded Their words-of these remarkable things we testify. I knew a so-called intellectual who said the Church was trapped by its history. My response was that without that history we have nothing. The truth of that unique, singular, and remarkable event is the pivotal substance of our faith."
- Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, "The Marvelous Foundation of Our Faith," October 2002 General Conference
Here is a list of questions that Mormons and Non-Mormons should ask themselves:
- Why are there so many versions of the "First Vision"? Couldn't Joseph remember what happened or who he saw in that Sacred Grove??
- Why can people feel the spirit when someone tells a false story (Paul H. Dunn) if the spirit only testifies of truth?
- When I attend another church and feel the spirit, what is it testifying to? If the spirit can testify to me in any church, how can I use that as a means of determining the 'true' church.
- Why are prayers answered in a way that is entirely unrepeatable? How can two people get different answers to the same prayer? If prayer is unreliable, why should I use it to make important decisions?
- How come DNA tests and other scientific research show that Native Americans are descendant from Asians, and not Hebrews as is claimed in the BoM?
- Why does the Book Of Abraham - a translation of the not so recently rediscovered Egyptian papyrus, proven to be the one that JS bought - not agree with what trained Egyptologists say it says?
- Why was Mark Hoffman, a con artist, able to fool the prophet and all his councilors with the salamander letter? How was he able to fool Gordon B. Hinckley who is now the current Prophet?
- Why did Joseph Smith "translate" the bogus Kinderhook plates? Why did God let him?
- Why has God repeatedly changed the temple ceremony if his gospel never changes?
- Why has the BoM had over 3000 changes made to it? (Granted, most of the changes are grammatical, but some are not. Either way, why does God translate with poor grammar that needs to be fixed?)
- If women are the greatest of God's creations, and are spiritually closer to God, why did God put the 'lesser' gender (men) in charge and give no power or authority (to speak of) to women?
- If polygamy was instituted for the care of spinsters and widows (this is what I was taught) why did JS marry 14 year olds? They are neither spinsters nor widows.
- Why would god command JS to marry women who were already married to living husbands?
- Brigham Young taught his Adam-God doctrine (he called it "doctrine," he never called it a "theory") continuously for over two decades. He stated that God had revealed this doctrine to him. He told Orson Pratt that Pratt was wrong when Pratt challenged the Adam-God doctrine. He even had the Adam-God doctrine put into the endowment ceremony. Now you get excommunicated if you avow Brigham Young's doctrine. Spencer W. Kimball warned members against believing Brigham's Adam-God doctrine. Members of the Council of 12 Apostles have consistently called it a "false doctrine."If the current brethren are correct why doesn't that make Brigham Young a false prophet? If the current brethren are not correct then why should I follow them?
- The Book of Mormon has complete chapters lifted directly from the King James Version of the Bible. If Joseph Smith was truly "translating" an ancient document and NOT just copying, why does he make the same translation errors the translators made in the KJV?
- Why the King James English?? When the KJV Bible was translated it was written in what was then contemporary English. Did Joseph Smith think that his poor attempt at KJ English would make the BOM sound more "Biblical" and more believable?
- Why are the terrorists of 9/11 evil but God is righteous when He wanted the Israelites to murder and plunder whole cities, men, women and children. Was THAT GodÆs work?
- Under what circumstances is it OK for one man to marry another mans' wife?
- Under what circumstances is it OK for a man in his mid thirties to marry a 14-year-old girl? Joseph Smith did!
- Under what circumstances is it OK for a woman to be married to one man and then sealed to another?
- How is a man who has done these things second only to Christ in significance?
- Why can a prophet speak authoritatively about anything but if he proves to be wrong then he was speaking as a mere man? If he proves to be right, how then was he speaking as a prophet?
- Why does God perform marvelous works on earth and then retraces his steps to erase any evidence of his doings?
- Why did God change languages so much more dramatically in the New World than anywhere else on earth such that no significant link to Hebrew or Egyptian can be found in native languages?
- Why did God erase all evidence of a worldwide flood?
- Why didn't God erase physical evidence that might cause us to question Him?
- Why did God change Native American DNA to match nicely with the explanations of other branches of science for the population of America?
- If God gave Joseph Smith the very words of the Book of Mormon why then were many of those words changed later?
- Why does God lack basic grammar and spelling skills?
- Why can't God get things right the first time?
- Why can't God canÆt get things right a second time?
- Why God He know the mistakes translators of the King James Version of the Bible had made so He could warn Joseph not to make the same ones again in the Book of Mormon?
- Why are eleven relatives of Joseph Smith and the Whitmer family adequate and reliable proof that the Gold plates existed even though they were gullible, treasure seeking individuals who believed their visionary or entranced states were proof of actual physical realities?
- Why are later second-hand accounts of events more accurate that contemporary first-hand accounts?
- Why is Monogamy is a lesser form of marriage?
- Why is there a time and a place when it is OK for church leaders to lie?
- Why can't other churchÆs change ordinances but mine can? If they do it they're in apostasy. If mine does it, it's prophetic revelation of GodÆs will.
- Why should I follow the brethren even though they provide me with misleading information?
- Why does it matter to God if my wife wears two earrings?
- Why should I follow Jesus except not drink wine like he did - especially if he never sinned?
- Why was Christ's saving grace powerful enough for little infants but it wasnÆt powerful enough to allow blacks to receive exaltation too?
- Why did the ancient church become apostate because they began teaching false doctrine but IÆm not going to worry about when Brigham Young did it?
- Why don't a prophetÆs prophecies need to be fulfilled for him to be a prophet?
- Why shouldn't a "Special Witness" witness of his special experiences? Isn't the sacred nature of them what makes them "special?" Why too sacred?
- Why are my feelings a valid indicator of the truth but the same feelings of others arenÆt?
- Why is it important to spread the gospel and convert the world to the truth and even encourage others to change religions in spite of family and tradition but I should stay in the church for my family?
- Why shouldn't I study or think too much?
- Why "The Glory of God is Intelligence" but intellectuals are the enemy of the church?
- How is eight years old old enough to make any lifelong, salvation determinant commitment?
- Why are secret combinations of the adversary, but sacred signs, tokens and blood oaths are holy?
- Why shouldn't Women follow popular trends in dress and grooming but men should follow popular business attire trends?
- Why can God bring back polygamy and the temple ceremony, restore the ever-lasting gospel, talk through seer-stones, make the impossible and miraculous happen -- and yet, can't manage to re-translate 116 lost pages accurately for fear of persecution?
- Why was God so concerned about the 116 lost pages being used against Joseph but was'nt concerned enough to warn him about the Kinderhook Plates and the Book of Abraham parchments coming back to haunt the church?
- How come having an eternal family means that I can blow my family off in this life while I attend to church matters and make it up to them in the next?
Credits: Deconstructor, Infymus
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