The corner of the internet concerned with Mormon issues has been aflutter recently over a new ad campaign created by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, featuring profiles of church members, showcasing their achievements, their individuality, their likability. It turns out that Mormons can be professional surfers and talented skateboarders. Having grown up Mormon in a small Mormon town, I've long appreciated the complexity of Mormon character and the uniqueness of individual Mormons, and I'm totally down with a project to reveal that to the rest of the world. I just wish the church hadn't spent the last three decades encouraging, if not demanding, homogeneity and blandness -- or, to use the official LDS term for the virtue of uniformity, correlation.
Originated in the early twentieth century but not emphasized until the 1970s, correlation was a program that consolidated central control and enforced consistency and sameness as much as possible throughout the church. Divisions within the church that had previously enjoyed considerable autonomy, such as the women's organization known as Relief Society (because its good works offered relief to those who suffered), were required to surrender independent local and church-wide bank accounts to authorities in Salt Lake City. Basic floor plans were created for temples and meeting houses, so that every place of worship built by the LDS church would resemble all others. Some more distinctive and eccentric buildings were bulldozed or sold, to the heartbreak of members who used them. Other design elements were also standardized: the church chose an official font for its logo, to be used on everything from missionary name tags to the signs outside churches.
When I was a child my father loved teaching Sunday school; each year he received a newly written manual full of challenging lessons requiring careful preparation if one was to teach them well. That ended with correlation; curricula were simplified and standardized for every age group and congregation. All lesson manuals were designed to be basic enough that virtually anyone could teach them; they were cross-checked for consistency, and approved by high-level authorities, to avoid controversy and ensure orthodoxy, even among three-year-olds. The results are what you'd expect. As Jana Riess notes in her blog Flunking Sainthood, Mormons go to church "to learn about God, not to worship God," and their meetings are so dull they are "stultifying."
Even appearance, dress and grooming were correlated, down to the color of men's dress shirts (white), the length of men's hair (above the collar), and the number of earrings worn by women (one in each lobe). Of course there were Mormons who dressed and groomed themselves as they pleased, but that didn't change the explicit directives informing members that to demonstrate obedience and worthiness, they would cultivate a modest, conservative appearance, as anything else suggested a proud, defiant heart.
So the new ads, challenging the effects of correlation, are overdue. However, they're not perfect. First, while profiles might feature hipsters with trendy clothes, the opinions and beliefs in a profile must be completely orthodox and thoroughly respectful, or it will be rejected by the site.
Second, as ECS of Feminist Mormon Housewives notes, there's a bait and switch going on in the profiles of women: most featured profiles showcase "women with small children who choose to work outside the home in demanding careers," which is not the ideal Mormon women are told to aspire to -- instead, they're encouraged to be stay-at-home-moms whenever possible. ECS concludes that if the church doesn't address the discord between what it tells its own members Mormon families should be like, and what it tells the rest of the world Mormon families are like, then "this PR campaign is disingenuous at best, and just plain gross, at worst."
Finally, the ads simply won't fix a primary problem they're designed to address: the church's dreadful image.
People think badly of the Mormon church not because they don't like its members, but because they don't like its policies, practices and teachings. Demonstrating to the world that individual Mormons are interesting, thoughtful, likable people won't compensate for the corporate church's vendetta against the queer community, its assault on women's rights, its history of racism, its polygamous past (or the fact that polygamy remains a central tenet of Mormon doctrine, even today), its odd doctrines (such as the belief that God is a resurrected man who lives near the planet Kolob) and its most arrogant practices (such as baptizing everyone's ancestors into the Mormon faith after they die, and trying to convert everyone else while they're still alive). In that list, there's something to offend just about everyone who isn't already Mormon -- and even many Mormons are outraged and hurt by the church's aggressive opposition to civil rights.
Imagine a similar campaign from BP, with a website introducing you to its lower-level employees. They surf, they skateboard, they volunteer in their communities. They're well-educated and well-spoken. They're clean but not scrubbed. You'd be happy living next door to them. The fact that BP's employees are decent, likable people doesn't change the fact that their employer, the entity footing the bill for the whole endeavor, is also the organization that trashed the Gulf of Mexico in an oil spill that killed 11 workers and untold marine life. If you care at all about the environment and corporate accountability, you'd still be leery of BP, its policies, its statements, and you wouldn't really want to get a job there or even buy its products.
The same is true for Mormonism. People can see this very polished PR campaign for what it is, and while it might improve the image of individual Mormons, it won't do a thing to burnish the image of the corporate church.
Follow Holly Welker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hollywelker
In the Bible, it says that good fruit cannot come from bad roots. It's the same with churches. A bad church cannot produce good people. The only way a bad church can survive as the LDS church has is to isolate all it's members and in effect, go underground, like The People's Temple, David Koresh, or Heaven's Gate.
IMHO, too many members are judged on those living in Utah. IMHO, too many Utah Mormons are totally out of touch, on so many things. I like the standardization because it mixes well with new converts who bring in their originality.
WAS IT OK FOR MORMONS TO ORGANIZE, FUND AND PUSH PROP 8?
--- if the reason is that they cannot tolerate Gay Marriage, well, since the church forbids it anyway, how does California affect THEM?
--- does the "moral imperative" justify political meddling to a level that questions their tax exemption in the state?
BACK TO WHAT I ALWAYS SAY...
THE BIG MORMON BOSSES ARE AFRAID THAT THE "SIN DAM" WILL BURST
-- if George marries Sam and has kids, the kids know Mormon kids, and the Mormon kids see that it all works out --- OMG, MORMONS MIGHT THINK FOR THEMSELVES!!!!!
ANY religion loses members when freedom of thought creeps in.
Thus, the old ogres in SLC were happy to break the hearts of millions of people, just to be sure their racket was not put to a threat.
FOR SHAME, ALL "GOOD" MORMONS -- YOU ALLOWED IT
This is America, and as citizens, we have the right to organize, push and fund any proposition we feel strongly about.
I generally vote against ALL ballot propositions - whether I feel they are a good idea or not - because we're not supposed to make laws that way under our system of government. I have never donated money or time to either side of any initiative. But I digress.
You wrote: "--- if the reason is that they cannot tolerate Gay Marriage, well, since the church forbids it anyway, how does California affect THEM?"
In my humble opinion, it is a defensive move. We have learned, by sad experience, that when the Government disagrees with a religion's views on marriage, they can be very persuasive in getting the that religion to change those views - including dissolving the corporate entity of the church, seizing its places of worship, throwing it's leaders in jail and sending a sizable portion of the military to ensure compliance.
You wrote: "--- does the 'moral imperative' justify political meddling to a level that questions their tax exemption in the state?"
Our tax exemption is not in question. Churches are allowed to donate money to political causes - particularly those where morality is involved - and encourage their members to vote against it. If you don't like that particular provision of the law, I would encourage you to write your lawmakers.
And by that, you mean, "We demand that you think as we do - and if you don't, we will excoriate you in the press, vandalize your places of worship, publish (on the internet) names of those who think differently so that we can get them fired from their jobs and close down their places of worship."
Doesn't sound much like Democracy to me. Your mileage may vary, slightly lower in California.
What we are saying is, don't violate a religion by usurping it's ideology and claiming it as your own. If you think marriage is between a man and woman, then YOU stay in your marriages between men and women, others who do not share your view (as marriages are and have been in all religions, not just Christianity and Judaism) are not bound to your interpretation. Leave them alone. It's none of your business, and America is not a theocracy.
If one says "prophet" oh great they are a prophet... so we should trust them to predict the future.
If one says "scripture" oh great it's scripture.. so we should trust it as a guide.
If one says "priesthood" oh great it's priesthood... so we should trust their testimony.
There's never an investigation to what is said, what is written, or who is saying it. In fact, when one does, as you have seen, the falsehoods are bent to appear truthful, the lies are igonred, and the context is stripped away. He "predicted" the civil war, ignore that everyone else knew it was bound to happen, and that he predicted the South would win and that all nations would be involved. Ignore the fact that he also predicted the fall of the US Government as well.
No. No no... let's just concentrate on the P.R. campaign. Nothing good about it.
We're the Church that believes in modern-day revelation.
We present a book to the world that purports to be scripture, and invite anyone who reads it to call down their own personal revelation as to its truthfulness. If you can't call down the revelation, you really shouldn't consider joining the Church.
But once you have called down the revelation, it's kinda hard to look at it any other way.
There it is again, another "magic" word.
Revelation
What is HIDDEN that your illustrious "prophets" are REVEALING?
There is NOTHING in the Book of Mormon that is spiritually insightful that is not already taught in the Bible. And any peculiar Mormon ideas are not worth anything.
I mean seriously, if I used the Bible to plagarize ideas from and use vague 50/50 bets. I'm sure that out of 65 or so revelations I would probably look pretty darned prophetic too.
"days will pass", and "not a moment hence"
You got conned... no you got played by Smith and you are so foolishly trying to seriously keep your dignity.
You Mormon prophets go ahead and bring up stuff that has no meaning and then 20 years from now, find some obscure similarity that has NO BEARING ON ANYTHING and say "oh look see our prophecy came true".
Hilarious. This IS the epidomy of old time white racist arrogance. It gets to a point where that whole mind just goes through the motions. The grimness, the matter of factness, the shaking of the head.
And through it all, you can't seem to deal with the fact that the guy is a lying bag of nonsense. That book is NOT scripture from God, nor Jews, nor Native Americans. Your invitation is a joke and rejected. there is no such thing as "personal revelation". Like no such thing as a round square. REvelations are to be witnessed.
1. Mark of Cain
2. Pre-Adam theory
3. Kolob (Qalb, the "center" figure in the page)
4. Reading Egyptian Hieroglyphs
5. Caught unaware by the fact our language IS a script derived from Hieroglyphs
6. Native Americans not Jews
7. Jewish Priests in Africa
8. Comorros Islands have a city called Moroni (Moroni from Hill Cummorah)
9. Slavery ended
10. New York still standing
11. Flipped flopped on slavery and black equality
12. Plural wives (not anymore)
13. Blood Atonement
14. Being greater than Jesus
15. Glass looking conviction
16. Using 16th century English to translate an alleged 6th century and 4th century BC Text (English didn't exist)
17. Oliver Cowdry test failed (Oh I'll just rewrite it)
18. Copycatted Muhammad's technique (Oh white Americans are catching on aren't they)
19. How many gods?
20. Oops, forgot Judaism and Christianity are TWO different religions, can't use the SAME excuse to refute them both.
21. Aaronic priesthood started with AARON
22. Blacks have been priests all along
23. White supremacy is automatic disqualification
24. True Prophets don't write books about themselves glorifying themselves in their writings and call it "God inspired" (see the Gospels).
25. Judaism isn't a mute religion to just make up stuff.
26. No bar mitzvahs in Native American culture and history.
27. No passovers in Native American culture and history.
You guys can defend the Mormon faith --- or criticize its racial policies -- until Moroni lays down his horn, BUT
I AM LOOKING FOR A CHANGED POLICY by the church leadership, and I think both of Holly's articles open the door to that discussion.
They certainly are not going to admit racism, David, nor are details of the mormon books or the Bible on the table for revision anytime soon.
WILL THE "GOOD MORMONS" FORCE AND END TO POLITICAL MANEUVERING OR NOT?
--- absent a strong and positve declaration that things went way too far in 2008, and that churches have no business organizing state laws "under the table", particularly in states where their members are a tiny minority
THE MORMON REPUTATION IS STAYING IN THE TOILET FOR AWHILE TO COME
You "good mormons", by allowing this manipulation via hateful means, have gone from "Oh, yes you are one of those nice Mormons" to "You are part of a church that meddles in politics and freedoms so eeeeew, get away from me, I don't trust what you might do"
ALL the questioning of your church, its policies, and its members was put on the table by the vile actions and political machining, so PLEASE DO NOT WHINE THAT IT'S PREJUDICE.
Again using the Priesthood ban as a model, President David O. McKay started working on it as early as 1950. 28 years and two or three presidents later, the policy was changed. And that was an issue that everybody knew would eventually change.
The Gay Marriage issue has no such advantage. You might as well try to get the Church to accept adultery as being non-sinful.
No one is asking you to accept Gay Marriage (although MY Jesus says you ought to)
YOU GUYS NEED TO APOLOGIZE FOR THE POLITICAL ORGANIZING, FUNDING, PUSHING, LYING, ETC OF 2008 -
--- which are likely already against any reasonable doctrine anyhow
Something like "What took place was overboard, not what God told us to do, but the ideas of men who were carried away. We are going to stay out of politics now"
I do not believe that frightening parents with untruths, nor that sending busloads of people into another state to influence voters, is in your doctines
--- OR DO I THINK TOO HIGHLY OF YOUR GROUP?
(when referring to political activities, I will not call it a church)
In The Church, the Church fathers historically used their reason to understand the scriptures and passed down that knowledge, to the congregations.
There has never been a revision of Christian scriptures. But Mormonism adopted this fictional nonsense and then dropped it over 100 year period. Basically you guys wasted our time for 100 years passing some nonsense that was never taught in historical christianity only to come back and say "oh oops".
Remember again, historical Christian groups, many Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental, etc did NOT practice this. Many Protestant groups DID NOT practice this! And those that did apologized for it, including the Southern Baptists.
Why not the Mormons? Because they STILL WANT IT!
Back in the plural marriage days, Church members were driven out of four states (one under an Extermination Order) and finally driven from the country (only to find themselves back in the country six months later, when they won the land that is now the southwest from Mexico).
The government tried everything they could think of to try and get us to change, including seizing many of our places of worship, dissolving the corporate entity of the Church, stealing all the money in our immigration fund, throwing many of our leaders in prison, and declaring war on us and sending that Army to ensure compliance. And it still took more than forty years before we changed. Even then, the President said he would have let ALL of the buildings go to the government and ALL of the leaders be thrown in prison - had the Lord not told him it was time for the policy to change.
Do you honestly think a petition is going to change our minds?
But I will say this, you are right, the government did try everything to change Mormons...
And they did.
You guys abandoned polygamy officially, you've stopped trying to prejudice black people CURRENTLY, you gave up your silly notion of Deseret, and finally and most importantly, you lost your ability to have a "theocratic" government in Utah.
So the federal government beat you.
Your minds are not your own. You are enslaved by your lying leader.
I've refuted you, you've run into enough contradictions and confusion that you won't get out of it until you renounce Mormonism. I will continue to SUCCESSFULLY educate black people about the racist doctrine in Mormonism and how those teachings distort a healthy accurate and rational understanding of their own history, their own belief in God, and the history of Christianity and Judaism. I will show the facts that include the evidence that there were black Jewish priests, black Christian priests and a no black discrimination in the early church. Because there wasn't.
Good luck in life Netzach, you feel free to accept my offer to a live chat debate and I'll send you the details. Until then you are another Mormon defender flailing around with one arm holding tightly the Book of Mormon in another... defeated by a black man on a blog.
You seem obsessed with the idea of getting me to "admit" that Adam and Eve were black. But I've said repeatedly that I don't know and don't care what color they were. The Bible is absolutely silent on the issue.
You keep harping on the issue of a "racist" Mormon church - however the facts are these: Utah has never been home to a chapter of the KKK, never had separate lunch counters for blacks, separate drinking fountains, separate rest rooms. Never had a cross burning, never lynched a black. These are all activities of the so-called "Bible Belt" not the Jell-O belt. One wonders why your wild-eyed rants are not directed at them.
Any racist statements made, over the years, by our leaders have all been repudiated.
For an afterlife, We offer - to people of all colors - so much more than than just sitting on a cloud, strumming a harp and singing in the choir. We offer the opportunity of being together as a family unit and progressing eternally.
It's a message that resonates to all members of the human family.
and your offer is rejected. Because your offer is to be separated from God and to become your own god. In heaven we don't sit strumming harps (where did you get that notion from? Not the Bible). We get to be the family of God's children and the progress we make is within ourselves with God as our Guide. We do not need to supplant God or to take his position to make progress.
The racist Mormon church has never repudiated their lies. They simply recontextualize them in order to AVOID admitting mistakes. What did Conkley say on 20/20? "Forget about all of that stuff, it's in the past". No. Forgiveness goes hand in hand with confession, but Conkley didn't even say "FORGIVE us for our past mistakes"... no he simply said "Forget about it".
So you again, err. Find an official LDS statement where they confess their racist past and ask for forgiveness. So now you support an institution that teaches sinners to NOT confess.
1898 UTAH state law that prohibited marriage between a man and woman of different races,
city ordinances throughout Utah that barred African Americans from swimming in municipal pools including Ogden's Lorin Farr Park and Farmington's Lagoon, remained segregated and off-limits to African Americans until after World War II.
The French African singer Lillian Yavanti stayed with acquaintances in Salt Lake City because she could find no hotel that would take her in. Salt Lake City hotels refused accommodations to Metropolitan Opera contralto Marian Anderson in 1937. In 1938, the Hotel Utah rented her a room only after she agreed to ride up in the freight elevator.
Ok fine.
Ill summarize. When racists NON MORMONS were teaching the mark of Cain being "black skin" and that Cain's descendants were African American and Negro people of the world... BEFORE SMITH WAS BORN...
it goes without saying that this is no revelation.
Yet there is, that popular non-Christian folk teaching. Not found in the Bible. Not found in the historical archives of the Church Fathers.
Yet there it is, IN the first Mormon doctrine. IN all Mormon teachings.
And here we are... Mormons still in TWO THOUSAND TEN trying to defend the white supremacy by calling it "revelation".
basically, no matter how racist something is, no matter how hateful towards black people, if a Mormon apologist can justify it by saying "God did it" then it's understandable and all one needs to do is to mentally navigate through that notion that in the end, white prejudice against black people had SOME virtue and necessity for good after all!
One can only be disgusted so much before one hears lies and just is tuned out to the outrage. I have reached that point. Mormons lie to me in my face, and look at me with that straight face, and push their views with the same kind of "I'm white and right, let me just try to railroad you in this conversation with that confident tone in my voice that goes with my superior attitude" routine.
No.
Or project from the hateful and disgusting crap they pulled in those TV commercials in California, preying to the worst fears of parents.
And although I will go with your experience on Mormon racism as valid, I am still not thrilled that Blacks voted overwhelmingly for Hate 8. Foolish Gays thought that, since they were sympathetic to Blacks, and both groups struggled, that they had a group of friends there. The mormons did some work to make sure that was not true, for sure, but the feelings existed.
For me, NO oppressed group is really free until all are, and no group is free when it retains a feeling of looking down on others.
BUT, I think the Blacks were good people who saw things wrong, while the mormons had no interest in following Jesus when their fat wallets and smug arrangements might be shaken.
PS-- I am from Oakland, where I sold cheap shoes cheerfully to Black women 45 years ago. At that time the older women mostly had terrible feet, having not been able to try on shoes in the South. I did not find them immoral or look down on them, and I am still pissed on the 2008 vote, as you can tell, that they they found ME immoral and looked down on ME.
I respect your position and I agree black people who voted against it were voting in a somewhat hypocritical method.
But remember this: Anyone of any race can be gay... but not any gay person can be black.
Some black people will abandon their principles and join the bandwagon, just like some gays do. After all, the biggest leaders of the anti-gay movement are gay men. And the Republican party is filled with gay staffers.
You cannot equate a person's race with their identity. The apples and oranges do not equate. Anyone of any race can be gay, but not any gay person can be black.
So the immorality has to do with choices (and no I don't mean to say that being gay is or isn't a choice) but what they find immoral is what you do, how you live, not where you came from or what you look like and where your ancestors are from.
Now, I agree with you on the point you make though, black people should not be restricting rights of other groups based on fear and prejudice. But again I remind you, the Republican party probably has more gays who are gay bashers than blacks who are gay bashers.
a
And yes you are right, all of us must be free together. I support gay rights, let you have all of them. Let God sort this out in the afterlife because it's not my business to get into yours.
Is there ANY practicing Mormon who is willing to start a protest or discussion within the church, which would lean to an apology for the hideously mean Prop 8 TV commercials in California?
Or are we talking only about "no one can criticize the church leaders in any meaningful way"?
If I read another "we are wonderful, we overlook some stuff, because we get what we want, and we are certainly going to ignore that mean stuff and Gay stuff", I am gonna PUKE INTO MY COMPUTER
--- and I might stop by the visitors center (sales office) at the nearby temple again
http://ldsapology.org/
" RECONCILIATION
PETITION REQUEST TO
THE FIRST PRESIDENCY OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRISTOF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. " -Jesus Christ
http://ldsapology.org/
RECONCILIATION
PETITION REQUEST TO THE FIRST PRESIDENCY OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST
OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. " -Jesus Christ
I'm not sure how representative of typical Mormon attitudes this effort would be or how widespread, but there you go.
But I immediately had doubts, when seeing the gay couples on the page, that it was going to be viewed or paid attention to by most Mormons.
ANYONE KNOW THE RESULTS????????
Sorry. Nice try. Feel free spending your money though. It's very much wasted on convincing me the Mormon church is anything less than a menace to a free society after what it's done to destroy human rights. But are there good people in the church, sure, of course there are.
Basically Mormonism adopted the white supremacy that PRECEEDED them in America, and then tried to manufacture it as divine doctrine from God. Oops. Now they have in the 21st century tried to defend:
1. The notion that Adam and Eve were white
2. That black and native americans came from marks, curses, or some strange change of a white ancestor
3. that the original jews were white
4. That god came from a planet/star called kolob
Oh and by the way, the whole Kolob nonsense came from a papyrus one of his colleagues got from some Arab traders in Egypt. Now, when they looked at the paper, and pointed to the center, through ignorance and mistranslation, they interpreted the Arabic meaing "center" as in "center of the paper" with "Kolob, the guy in the center that is God". Then Smith ran with it, because he knew that average Americans were ignorant of Arabic.
They don't.
Mormonism still has doctrine relating skin color to some spiritual, divine, or supernatural virtue. Basically, Mormonism still teaches, and in it's doctrine asserts the following:
1. God was a white man from a planet called Kolob.
2. Jesus, Elohim, and Yahweh are separate beings (entities are beings).
3. White skin is a reflection of God's divinity in a way that is not reflected in darker skinned humans.
4. In the Mormon version...Cain was marked with black skin (although they are trying to make this seem like a metaphor, the fact is it's never been in the Bible anyway).
5. Native Americans have darker skin that white Jews because of a curse placed on them. This one is doubly ignorant, because it starts off with the false assumption that the early Jews were white.
6. Adam and Eve were white people.
1a) Not too many people have seen God. None reported skin color.
1b) Kolob is a star, not a planet.
2) Yahweh is the pre-existent Jesus. In Mormonism, they are the same being.
3) Skin color is not a reflection of God's divinity, in Mormonism.
4) Sadly, some Mormons adopted the "Curse of Cain" nonsense they borrowed from mainstream Christianity. It has been rejected as nonsense for more than three decades.
5) False, unless you believe God is a white Jew. And that the "curse" had anything to do with skin color.
6) Congrats, you got one right. I think that it is generally assumed A&E were white.
1. God created all the stars and planets, so God did not come from any star or planet.
2. You speak of "Yahweh" not "Elohim". and thus you avoid admitting separate beings.
3. Jacob 3:8 O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God. (basically one should repent of sins... not to be good before god, but so your skin can be white skin).
4. Some? ALL of the prophets, seers, revealators and presidents.
5. I'll ask you right now: were the original Jews white? And how did Native Americans get their darker skin color if they are descendants of Jews? You know Mormon doctrine, so from Mormon doctrine, give us the answer.
6. Congrats, you just admitted MOrmonism is racist. No where in the Bible or anywhere else except white racist minds did this idea of Adam/Eve being white originate. I bring you back to the obvious question... where did darker skinned people come from If #2 and #4 are not true in your mind
People LIKE to be fooled into a dream -- that's why movies are popular
I don't know. "Belief" is one of those mysterious functions so fascinating that it is a subject of many studies. It has not made me stupid nor has it made me smart. It *has* created a very interesting possible future that is worth looking into and working toward. I am literate, skilled in many technical professions and actively engaged in my community.
It helps in this case that ancient societies have written on metal plates of various kinds, gold being the most enduring of course. So it is not at all clear that this or any other aspect of the Joseph Smith story was "made up". You can be sure if any part could be convincingly shown to be false, not much would be left of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I would prefer that the plates still exist and be on display, but quite frankly, how would any of us know they weren't made yesterday? I am unaware of any technology for dating gold although you *can* sometimes trace its origin through measuring trace elements.
How big is the Church of the Urantia Book? Have you even heard of the Urantia Book? It isn't even clearly "made up", rather is claim is that everything written was "channeled" by persons unnamed.
Also there were no revivals in the Palmyra area in 1819-20 like Smith alleged. They didn't occur until 1825-27. This type of news was thoroughly reported by the local press at the time. Smith also said he enraged the whole clergy of Palmyra with stories of his adolescent theophany, but there wasn't any mention of Smith in the press from that time. Historical documentation shows that's when he was involved with money-digging with his brother and other family, until the late 1820's when he eloped with Emma, promising no more money-digging. He then switched to prophet and there was no mention of gold plates until that time. There is also no mention of God visiting until the 1838 history he wrote, alleging therein that it took place in 1820.
-- the 1st and last items in a checklist from a non-denomination philosophy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A mature adult is one who:
1. Does not automatically resent criticism, realizing that it may contain a suggestion for self-improvement.
15. Shows spiritual maturity by--
· accepting the existence of a Higher Power and recognizing the importance of this Power in life.
· realizing each person is part of mankind as a whole and has much to give; that each of us has an obligation to share with others the gifts that have been bestowed upon us.
· obeying the spirit of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Replying like children
"MY toy is better and more important than yours"
or worse
"MY toy is important to me, I can't think about you or your problem"
is neither mature, nor Christian, TO ME.
That I feel like "doing you because you did me"
and
I want to be morally superior, but still try to mess with you to try to make up for you messing with me,
TWO BUSYBODIES DON'T MAKE A RIGHT --- but my power is only to be thought-provoking. I am not going to invade Utah to make Gay relationships mandatory.
We say live your life as you see fit - but stay the hell out of our dictionary.