Apostasy from Christ' true teachings

Read your own history.

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Let's see. As I've heard the story about Joseph Smith, he was arrested as a young man for fortune telling by putting a stone in a hat, then looking into the hat. Later, he claimed to have found golden tablets that he translated letter by letter into into English by looking into a hat.
He got a few friends to sign an affidavit that he really found these golden tablets, but no one else has ever seen them. I think Moroni took them to heaven or something. Later, he met a young lady, and much to his wife's chagrin, J.S. received a revelation that he could have multiple wives, and he married the young lady.

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Please present authentic proof.

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In Comprehensive History of the Church, 1, p. 129, Martin Harris (one of the three witnesses) states that Smith used a seer stone - "chocolate-colored, somewhat egg-shaped stone which the Prophet found while digging a well in company with his brother Hyrum." He goes on to state that with it, "Joseph was able to translate the characters engraven on the plates"As for the translation, By aid of the Seer Stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin, and when finished he would say 'written;' and if correctly written, the sentence would disappear and another appear in its place; but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used (p. 29)In "An Address to All Believers in Christ", David Whitmer (another of the three witnesses) writes I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of manIn 1826, Smith was brought up on charges of "glass looking", a common scam at the time. A "glass looker" would claim to have the ability to divine buried treasure. In resposne to the court records, numerous apologists have tried to excuse the charges away; however, Smith himself admits being a money digger (Elder's Journal v1, num 2, p. 28 & 29; also the Documentary History of the Church (DHC) 3:29 and the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pg. 120)As for polygamy and the revelation, read Doctrines and Covenants, Sec. 132:4, and DHC vol. 5's introduction. Emma was told that she would be destroyed if she did not abide by the covenant. His first additional wife was his housemaid Fanny Alger. The total number of his wives is not recorded, but mormon historians typically place it between 27 and 60.

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Many other things happened as he started this church, but eventually he was killed in a shootout at a jail. It's referred to as his martyrdom, but he was martyred with pistols in hand.

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Please present authentic proof.

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Documentary History of the Church, Vol. 7, p. 101-103:"Elder Cyrus H. Wheelock came in to see us, and when he was about leaving drew a small pistol, a six-shooter, from his pocket, remarking at the same time, Would any of you like to have this?' Brother Joseph immediately replied, `Yes, give it to me,' whereupon he took the pistol, and put it in his pantaloons pocket. The pistol was a six-shooting revolver, of Allen's patent; it belonged to me, and was one that I furnished to Brother Wheelock when he talked of going with me to the east, previous to our coming to Carthage . I was sitting at one of the front windows of the jail, when I saw a number of men, with painted faces, coming around the corner of the jail, and aiming towards the stairs. The other brethren had seen the same, for, as I went to the door, I found Brother Hyrum Smith and Dr. Richards already leaning against it, They both pressed against the door with their shoulders to prevent its being opened, as the lock and latch were comparatively useless. While in this position, the mob, who had come upstairs, and tried to open the door, probably thought it was locked, and fired a ball through the keyhole; at this Dr. Richards and Brother Hyrum leaped back from the door, with their faces towards it; almost instantly another ball passed through the panel of the door, and struck Brother Hyrum on the left side of the nose, entering his face and head. At the same instant, another ball from the outside entered his back, passing through his body and striking his watch. The ball came from the back, through the jail window, opposite the door, and must, from its range, have been fired from the Carthage Greys, who were placed there ostensibly for our protection, as the balls from the firearms, shot close by the jail, would have entered the ceiling, we being in the second story, and there never was a time after that when Hyrum could have received the latter wound. Immediately, when the ball struck him, he fell flat on his back, crying as he fell, `I am a dead man!' He never moved afterwards. I shall never forget the deep feeling of sympathy and regard manifested in the countenance of Brother Joseph as he drew nigh to Hyrum, and, leaning over him, exclaimed, `Oh! my poor, dear brother Hyrum!' He, however, instantly arose, and with a firm, quick step, and a determined expression of countenance, approached the door, and pulling the six-shooter left by Brother Wheelock from his pocket, opened the door slightly, and snapped the pistol six successive times; only three of the barrels, however, were discharged. I afterwards understood that two or three were wounded by these discharges, two of whom, I am informed, died, I had in my hands a large, strong hickory stick, brought there by Brother Markham, and left by him, which I had seized as soon as I saw the mob approach; and while Brother Joseph was firing the pistol, I stood close behind him(BTW, how many of these do you want me to address? Quiz, you should really read your religion's own documents better)------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

There were a number of seperate but similar groups of christians in the middle-east & the Mediterrainian area between the years just after Jesus lived up to & after the time of Constantine. There are plenty of references to the "saints" in the NT, and from them I gather that the saints are any and all persons who claimed Jesus died for their sins and rose from the dead, although the Catholic church has a different slant on who the saints are.
I don't have a Bible with me at the moment so I would appreciate it if anyone on this forum could fill us in with the NT references on the saints. So then, we can show that the saints were christians who Paul and other writers taught the true teachings of Jesus. Therefor we may be able to show wether or not Paul's teachings concerning Jesus, and Jesus' teachings also, were the same or similar to the teachings of the Nicene Council. If it can be shown that the teachings of Jesus are Pauls' teachings, and are teachings of the Nicene Council, then of course the saints were persecuted(Tacitus says as much), but they were not destroyed, because their beliefs were manifest in the doctines agreed to at the Council of Nicea. So if this is true, then we have the true teachings of Jesus reflected in the teachings of the Council, and if those teachings have survived to this day, then there is no need for a prophet like Joseph Smith to come along and give us the "true teachings of Jesus". I will shortly edit this post and present my evidence. OK, Having read-up somewhat on the "Council of Nicea", I believe I have come to the conclusion that the "true teachings of Jesus" that you are referring to(you were not very clear), is the deity of Christ, or the Trinity. Whether or not Jesus Christ was as much God as was the Father was the main reason why the roughly 230 Bishops from all over the Roman world gathered at Nicea. Every Bishop except for Arius & 2 other Arians decided in the end that Jesus was equal in substance with God the Father. I'll be back shortly.
[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 11-10-2003][This message has been edited by Prozacman, 11-10-2003][This message has been edited by Prozacman, 11-11-2003]

Let's have a little more fun, shall we? Quiz, what is this?Any compitent egyptologist who can read even the most basic of heiroglyphs will inform you that this is a page from the Book of Breathings (a condensed version of the Book of the Dead). It was found buried on two mummies that were being toured around the US in the early 1800s. Of course, at the time, the Rosetta Stone was only a few decades old, and the only compitent egyptologists in the world were in Europe, so this enabled Smith to flat-out lie (again) about what it said; he falsely claimed that it was about Abraham being sacrificed; he even drew in pictures in the missing areas, and falsely labeled the beings in the image.Read more at: The Book of AbrahamNeed I also refer you to the Kinderhook plates for more examples of Joseph's amazing ability to "translate"? ------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 11-10-2003]

Maybe Abraham sacrificing Isaac??

Many thanks to Rei for saving me a lot of research.As for the Philip thing, I no longer have the Book of Mormon to look in, but for heaven's sake, surely a Mormon knows the names of the Mormon apostles.Of course, since I'm drawing on memories from ten years ago, it might have even been the brother of one of the Mormon apostles, but it can't be that hard for a Mormon to find a man named Philip in the Mormon Bible.As for when they left and came to America, I'm not making up some new story. It's your story that Lehi and Nehi and whoever else came over to the U.S. It's your church that says it happened in the 7th century B.C. Why should I bother proving that to you? Do you believe something different than that?

Here is Bible.nets search on
"saint" KJV------------------
Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

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No, I think proving Joseph Smith to be a false prophet is relevant because and only because my understanding of the apostasy (I.E. falling away from the true teachings of Christ) came from Joseph Smith and as such you must prove Joseph smith to be a false prophet to help make my claim false.

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Quiz, I'd like a reply to messages #51 and #52 in this thread.They specifically deal with what kind of evidence you would accept which would cause you to doubt that J. Smith was a prophet.Please anwer these messages. I know you are being somewhat bombarded by several people, but anwering these two messages wil actually advance the discussion.At the moment, you're entire argument consists of "J. Smith was a true prophet. I won't give examples of any of his fulfilled prophecies, but he did make them, and you should believe me because I said so. You should prove to me that He wasn't a true prophet, but I won't tell you what evidence I would accept which would make me doubt it, so I can just ignore it."

I have seen them before these are nothing new to me. I am just trying to see where any of this is relevent to Joseph Smith being a false prophet. That was the point of asking for proof ;.)Quiz

I believe that was the story, but I also believe, correct me if I am wrong "ancient hebrew" something we dont understand even with the rose stone.QuizI retract this statment[This message has been edited by Quiz, 11-14-2003]

I am not sure what philip story you are talking about but let me remind you the "RLDS" and the LDS church both have a Apostleship.Quiz

False propheciesQuiz

I remember presenting the prophecy about the enemys of the saints how they would be cursed for stoping the work of the Lord. I dont have the reference down as it has been a long while but I can find it. Btw the place that was cursed was Missouri. The fullfillment of the prophecy was the Civil war and how Missouri was the state which had the most tragedy from the Civil war.Quiz

In what way do you mean that Missouri had the most tragedy from the Civil War?------------------
Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

When you check into the Civil War there were other stats which were obviously involved. Missouri being a border and as such the state of Missouri suffered the most tragedy (i.e. sorrow). I wont get into specifics because that is where you may find my faults, they had death, sickness, whatever else includes tragedy.Quiz

That is pretty vague.lets look at deaths (battle deaths AND sickness) by stateGun Reviews Archives | TheGunZoneLooks to me like every state had death, sickness and tragedy, and Missouri was in no way the worst.You are going to have to be a lot less vague. Your statement could be turned around to mean just about anything.------------------
Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato