“The truth shall set you free”. When I was a believing member of the church, I often told people and thought to myself that all I want is the truth. But it wasn’t until I had a life changing epiphany about the importance of personal integrity that I got the courage to study the churches truth claims with objective intellectual honesty. I had to be willing to lose everything (ie… the association and respect of my community, friends, family, marriage, and even employment) in order to gain the kind of personal integrity that is truly willing to follow whatever the truth dictates. It takes a great deal of courage to even put yourself in the position where you might have to choose between the church, and personal integrity. And I honor anyone who is willing to do it! I love you guys! Thank you for having that courage and encouraging others.
At about 36 minutes in when he says it is a crushing experience that is such an understatement. It is soul wrenching. It took me almost 2 weeks to even bring up that I was having doubts about the historicity to my still believing wife. How ridiculous and wrong it is for a church to deceive and lie and then in conference to tell you that you are at fault for doubting and to just go on with the living the LDS gospel. It will all work out in the end as long as you just ignore the lies and deceit that we have forced down your throat by parents, teachers, leaders, etc. It has taken me almost 2 years to come to terms with this. I would LOVE to sit down for another temple recommend interview and just say that I am as honest in my dealings with my fellow man as the church is with its members. I can guarantee (my opinion) that most leaders of the church could not honestly pass the interview process if they were TRULY honest. How can I support and sustain the leaders of the church when I know that they have in the past and to this day deceive and obfuscate the truth on a daily basis. When I began my faith crisis I was serving as the ward clerk and in my PPE with the stake presidency they could not get me out of that calling fast enough as I could not be trusted to serve in that calling due to my lack of faith in the church truth claims. This is a horrible paragraph and does not even begin to explain what I have and continue to go through in my personal life living with a wonderful and beautiful wife who has stood by me while going through this process. Until you have to live this process it is almost impossible to put into words what we have to deal with due to rampant dishonesty and deceit by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It kills me to even call it that as I cannot believe that Christ would willingly lend his name to this kind of lie. I would guess that he (Christ) would clean out the church offices that would make his actions at the temple seem like a Sunday picnic.
I know you posted this a year ago… but I’m currently going through my deconstruction. It is a devastating process as you say, I am curious how your wife initially reacted and how things are going now. I’ve been struggling for about a year but just recently started doing research, like listening to this podcast. My husband knows I’ve been struggling this whole time, and was sad to know I’ve started research (because in the church that is so frowned upon) I suggested he could maybe listen to this podcast and he pretty much said absolutely not. I asked him why, and he said because he still believes in god. I told him he could do that without the church, and that I understand and I won’t push him to do things he doesn’t want to do… but I’m struggling. I don’t know how to move forward and help him understand my viewpoint. I don’t want to hurt him, and I know how painful this process has been so far for myself. and I don’t want to cause any resentment from him towards me on my part if I start to tell him things or share what I’m learning. I am at a loss. Any words of advice would be helpful.
@@haleighpratt2909 My aplogies for taking so long to respond. I just saw this and want to let you know that I have never been happier and closer to my wife and family. I think we all know in the back of our minds that something is off but just can't quite place it. Once I started going through this I realized that it makes way more sense that it was all Joseph and not God. I can say that in my case and with my wife it is best to just leave it alone as she does not have any interest in hearing anything negative. She has said that she is very happy for me and that I seem happier. Everyone is on their own path and the last thing a TBM wants to hear is anything that is negative about the church. I still attend sacrament meetings on most Sundays with the exception of fast and testimony meeting. It is funny to hear my wife come home and say that she is so angry with comments made by the teachers or others since I have stepped away and I believe that someday she will start to study some of the history. I do have to say that she was really mad when she saw my peep stone sitting on my desk in my office. She was not amused. Good luck, feel free to reach out to me at any time. If you want my direct email address please let me know and I will be able to respond much quicker to any comments or questions you may have.
@@haleighpratt2909 don’t give up. My wife “stopped believing” several years back, and I was very angry about it. Even though I was more or less inactive at that time, still I had dedicated my entire life to the church. Going on a mission, reading the book of Mormon almost 30 times etc…and I truly thought that it was all true. After many hard years one day it just clicked. It was like I had awakening. And now listening to these podcasts, There’s something satisfying about all the pieces of the puzzle getting put back together. But I would’ve never even given these a chance I had a not had that sort of personal revelation I guess you could call it. I’m so grateful that my wife waited for me to catch up. She saved my life.
@@haleighpratt2909I am going through the same thing. I told my husband I found out a lot and no longer believe and when I wanted to tell him the brain washing rhetoric we were taught to say just automatically poured out of his mouth. It was disturbing. Especially since I knew I would have said all the same stuff only a few months prior.
I feel so bad for Jenn when she said that when she started peeling back the layers at some point she was pleading with God to “please let me find some part of all of this that is true”. It’s truly tough when everything starts to unravel.
This is how I feel as Christianity is unraveling for me. So many facts that were never told to me, and when I try to talk a out them with my family, they don't want to hear it.....the cognitive dissonance is so strong. But I feel like, with given the facts I'm learning about how the Bible was written and how the Christian religion began, I have totally been lied to.
This is exactly how it happened for me. 36 years of belief came crashing down in less than a week when I started to actually search for the truth. It was the worst feeling in the world to sit there and have to acknowledge that everything I was taught and believed was a lie.
Yes! I was a “regular” Christian, doing it the “easy” way. But I had l questions that I felt like I needed the answers for, and regular Christianity didn’t have them, but Mormonism did. After finding the answers I was searching for, and realizing that the Church’s answers for those questions aren’t true as well as the doctrine, it’s starts to unravel EVERYTHING.. and I mean everything. Even the faith I had before being exposed to Mormonism
As a believing member I had heard of most of the things that broke my shelf like treasure digging, polygamy, and the BOA among others, but only in the most surface level ways. Once I dug into how all these pieces fit together to weave the giant con and fraud it was impossible to keep them as tiny crumbs to be ignored. They become the narrative when you really learn about them. They are the framework to the whole Mormon story, not just a little detail that should be dismissed. Great work Mike and Mormon stories.
@LDS Discussions true. The question that opened me up to “taking the leap of faith” as you mentioned several times during the presentation was “if it wasn’t true and I could show you, would you even want to know?” What does Mormonism teach? Question with a pure heart and real intent to know for yourself…. I figured I shouldn’t let my ego and entrenched lifestyle in Mormonism stop me from actually following its core stated tenet. Oops….
“Intellectually honest.” How refreshing to listen, learn, release the guilt by being intellectually honest. These podcasts are long breaths fresh air. No more shame. No more hypocrisy (at least for me). Away from the church for eight years now, but not until I found Mormon Stories Podcast and LDS Discussions did I begin to feel free, valid, and honest. Thank you!!!
I’ve never been a Mormon, but this series is very well done. It’s a fascinating exposition of the dangers of motivated reasoning and the perils of self-deceit.
You do realize that you're watching a group of people who are highly motivated to point the church in a bad light, right? I mean even if they weren't - do you consider that these people are looking at all of these matters and saying "How would I know if this is actually true?" I think it's easy to tell just by the fact that they intentionally lie and malign on every episode. Whatever they say that is true is really discredited by that sort of behavior because it shows mal intent.
@@daretobeamormon The plain fact is that they are making reasoned assessments of the evidence. Their motivations are irrelevant. It sounds like you are looking for ways to dismiss the facts.
@@davethebrahman9870 facts is a strong word for a lot of what is said in this video. Some of it is blatantly false. Some is a stretch or misrepresentation. Some is true - but the "therefore" is a stretch. Some is just true. People who talk about "facts" a lot aren't usually very consistent in their logical reasoning. They apply that test where they want to - usually on a lot less than fact. Not saying that's you - I wouldn't know. In any case, what I can say about you is that you're sorely mistaken if you think motivations are ever irrelevant. You know absolutely nothing of science, for one subject, if you think that's the case. I try never to dismiss facts in any case.
@@daretobeamormon I usually find that people who want to argue about what a ‘fact’ is are on the losing side of an argument. Perhaps you could point out a few of the ‘blatantly false’ statements in the video.
@@davethebrahman9870 well, I don't see any truth to that. You say something is a fact - and what? Everyone should say, yes sir - those are the magic words? In any case, you can start with the huge section of the video dedicated to the copied script of characters from the plates. That is not an authentic document. Nobody even claims that came from Joseph Smith or Martin Harris and the evidence it was copied from their original is complete conjecture. Furthermore all of the claims that having enough hebrew(ish) or Egyptian(ish) characters on plates would fill an enormous volume of plates to be the length of the Book of Mormon is making so many assumptions that there is no fact to at all. It is perfectly plausible that the characters would've fit on that size of documents. There's also no claim that the plates were solid gold. They were gold in color and contained gold. Depending on the ore used to make them the weight is certainly plausible as well. All of these things are also conjecture - but the point is, Joseph makes a claim and you look back 200 years and say "Well, here's a bunch of facts I made up about that - which if things were the way I am saying they were it would disprove your story..." that's a convenient argument to get to stab into the dark and make up facts all this time later - like how many unknown characters it would take to write an english equivalent on a gold plated leaflet, or how much an unknown ore would weigh on said unknown leaflets. The Book of Mormon has witnesses of the plates. They made and signed claims. There is nothing about the complaints being given that in any way comes from the actual claims made. These are imaginary concerns. That's just to speak of one section of the arguments being made - this sort of issue runs all the way through it on every subject. I'm not someone who will bear my spiritual witness to you when presented with "facts". It's just precisely as you suggested should not be done - what exactly is your idea of a fact because these are not what I would consider facts. I also don't consider the authenticity of the Book of Mormon a fact. I believe it is a claim - which I believe to be factual. That's a really different category. I have the intellectual honesty to differentiate the two, but also don't think an objective investigator would be swayed by the concerns being brought up here unless you just take these people as unmotivated objective truth seekers. It's clear to me from how they present their material that they are not that.
This series is unbelievably informative and well done. Respectful and sensitive, yet brutally honest and "true"... pardon the irony. Thank you Mormon stories!!!
Even in the Church's article in 2015 admitting that the BoM was translated with JS's face in a hat, that article had 3 pictures of JS looking at the plates. As if they expected members not to read the article, but just look at the pictures.
As someone who just recently came out of the church, thank you for these videos. My bubbles wasnt ready to be bust two years ago but it deflated on it's own and these have helped me gain a better understanding.
Having been a lifelong Mormon, and finding it hard to find someone in my circle to discuss doubts (historical facts), these podcasts are a Godsend. Your work on this is invaluable. Also, just realized that this is only 3 days old! Can’t wait for the rest of this series!
@@SpartacusMA1 Still wrestling with God. I flirt with nihilism as I search for some semblance of meaning. At the time of writing, I would say I was physically in, mentally out. Now, I occasionally attend in hopes that I'll still find community, and will continue to do so until I find another community. I periodically revisit claims that argue for and against Mormon truth claims in hopes that I'll gain further clarity and have better depth of knowledge for those who ask me questions about my faith journey. I still leave an open mind that I could be wrong in believing that the Mormon Church's claims are all false, but all signs point to the contrary.
@@calebhensley1267 Hey! I'm so glad to hear back from you! It may be because I found skepticism before I left the church, but once I found out it wasn't true, I left god behind as well. I also flirted with nihilism and regretted it...although I guess I still have a somewhat nihilistic mindset.
These are definitely piercing the bubble. Thank you for your gentleness in addressing these topics. After a mission and 38 years...I've been doing a lot of thinking.
Thank you, thank you for the truth, it is very difficult for older people to change who have been in the Mormon religion for a long time and raised their children in it. So many emotions for them. I pray every day that the Mormon people will see the true light of Jesus. God Bless you all, this is so needed and necessary!!
So many LDS members came to Christ in genuine conversion. But salvation or forgiveness is a pure faith in nothing but grace as the only begotten son of God, his sinless life and resurrection from the dead. As soon as other requirements are introduced, that faith is compromised. Attention is immediately redirected to following a false prophet. By the time you figure it out, you are highly invested and strongly indoctrinated. You tend yo continue on in a comfortable pretense of faith. But in doing so, you subject your children to an indoctrination that will lead them into an inability to ever trust in Christ alone. Plus the teachings that are in direct opposition to the actual word of God.
Great comment by Mike starting at 2:59:56. I could not agree more that people are not leaving the church because of you or anyone else. I had never heard of you or your site until I was in full blown faith crisis. Luckily someone told me about your site and it allowed me to find great info. about the issues I was dealing with. I wish the church would have something to address these serious issues rather than just labeling us a lost, misguided or apostates when we are just trying to work out the difference between what we were taught vs. the facts. Keep up the great work. You have great guests and treat them with respect rather than mocking and laughing as is found on some of the other sites out there that condemn you and others like you for doing research and providing honest facts.
Sorry to respond a year later! Just found this series. I've never been Mormon, but was raised by a toxic Protestant minister. Deconstructed years ago, but never found such healing and community til I landed here. I think the Catholics and definitely some brands of Muslims are much better at dealing with doubt and questioning. Maybe it's their maturity as faith traditions? I really don't know. I'm not in a hurry to wrap myself up in yet another set of fantasies and delusions.
I’ve grown up in Utah for all my life. I have always felt like an outsider and afraid to speak up. Ashamed of my beliefs. For the first time in my life I finally know the church isn’t true. I know my heart has been telling me what’s right and I no longer feel like I’m the crazy one in the room.
30ish years As BIC mormon and about 7 years out. I have only heard about puting thing on the shelf until it breaks. But Jen backpack is more accurate. You have to carry this with you. Every time you find out something new that was not taught or taught 100% you carry that. And one day it get to heavy and you can't not carry it or something breaks but and now you see everything that you tucked away. But unlike the shelf you can't just throw it away. You have to light the load of and mend the backpack. And carry at lest some of it with you because that is so ingrained into you. But you now can also share it with other on your travels through life with people that are ready to listen. Thank you Jen for a better metaphor I going to try to use this going forward
I remember the paintings on the wall of the church houses... Joseph at a desk, lamp, with O.C. looking at the plates and translating.. It feels like a trick.
Thanks Mike and John. In a time of confusion and frustration, this was helpful. Have believed this for many years, but was never able to consolidate my ideas. Appreciate your time and efforts. Information is a problem for the church. Much like slavery, you can’t let the slaves learn. No harm in listening and then making a choice.
I wish all this fascinating material could be put into a book. I would buy the book immediately. Yeah, I'm a never-Mormon, but I have long been an amateur Mormonologist. I love this so much! I guess I'm not the person this is all aimed at, but the process of looking at these documents is important on many levels.
On this discussion about lengthly documents and podcasts... That's what's so great about the CES Letter. It's short and to the point. Like what Mark Twain said "I'm sorry I didn't have time to write a short letter".
After hearing the officially promoted "First Vision" story, it always seemed odd to me when they then turn around (when talking about the miracle of the Book of Mormon) and try to portray Joseph Smith as being a virtually illiterate farm boy who couldn't really read or write and couldn't string together a complete sentence to save his life. I remember watching a visitors center movie and seeing illustrations that purported to show Joseph Smith, at age 14, studiously reading the KJV Bible, implying that reading the bible, with comprehension, was well within his abilities. The movie then goes on to tell us that Joseph Smith was particularly inspired when he read the following passage: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” (James 1:5). Well, if he has no problem, at age 14, reading and understanding passages like that from the bible, why should we then think that several years later, when he is in his early twenties, he somehow became more illiterate than he was at age 14 and somehow became unable to even speak in coherent sentences? Doesn't make sense at all. And to top it off, he wasn't doing any of the actual writing anyway, since he always had a scribe there to help him out (like Tom Sawyer always had someone there to help him paint fences, when that chore needed to be done). So Joseph Smith didn't even have to be a gud spelerr and punktchooater neeether.
I remember teaching my friends that Joseph Smith Jr. Had gold Plates on a table partially covered up.... And the other person Oliver Cowdery was there.... Sometimes Emma as Joe's scribes. I never talked with them about a seer stone unless on my mission the non member would bring it up. I looked at my companion and said huh? Lol..... Then we'd change the subject to the urim and thumbum forgive my spelling. I knew about the spectacles etc from Seminary. I remember at a youth camp activity seeing the things on display like the bloody shirts from Joseph Smith Jr and Hyrum Smith. I think he probably had a set of tin plates painted gold or something from a Black Smith but it's left to a lot of speculation and imagination I guess. Just my thoughts. Lol
The disclaimers (i.e. you don't want to hurt the church) make you sound so gentle and harmless, but I find it highly ironic (in a funny sort of way), that your very diplomatic approach actually has a much more powerful effect than would an "in your face - bring it on" type of approach, which may turn away many listeners. The evidence you, ever so gently, throw out at this organization all but completely disarms them. They have almost no leg to stand on anymore. It's amazing and so refreshing!
Yes ! Those employed by the church, their job is to promote faith ! You said it best Mike, in their minds it must be more important to promote faith than to search for truth 👍🏼
Why do you consider excommunication from a corrupt organization to be a punishment??? It's a badge of honor! You are testifying of actual truth in the face of a powerful and intimidating organization. You are a hero! You have found the truth and the truth has made you free.
I think that's a matter of personal interpretation. Some people want to feel more in control of their exit, others want to make the church go to the extra effort of excommunication.
These are awesome. My light switch is on. Can we get a series number put in the title block so it's easy to figure out where this episode fits with the others? Keep up the good work
I am leaving and I wish I could not know all this stuff now. I wish I could have known when I was younger. I don't know how many people I turned off by trying to help them understand "the truth" of the church. Now I know there was no truth and I feel gutted. Its NOTHING I would wish on anyone else.
I was talking to an apologist last week who tried gaslighting. He said all this information about a seer stone and top hat were readily available. Yet what he gave me as sources were largely older material that is out of print, not available online and not in Deseret Book stores. I am compiling an annotated bibliography of all sources on the top hat theory of BM translation. I will provide that free of charge to anyone who is interested. I would be interested if anyone can send sources of what they have. I have looked at a recent video called "A Day for the Eternities" where a top hat appears in the translation process. It shows on some web sites. When I watch the video copy link on the church website that image has been edited out, in white to blend in with the gold plates which are in a cloth bag.
Thanks for doing this. I stumbled on your series of podcasts with Chris Shelton about the history of Scientology. I was really surprised by all the parallels between the two religions. I'm excited to hear the detailed history of Mormonism now.
The point at the beginning of this video is very correct (the analogy of a room with brick walls, and the difference between looking at one brick with a flashlight versus looking at all of the bricks by lighting the entire room). You can't convince anyone of anything until that person is ready and willing to EXAMINE THE EVIDENCE FOR THEMSELVES and not merely confine themselves to only what they've been taught by some specific group but look at ALL of the evidence - and if they actually do that, then it's not you convincing them of anything at all, it's THEM convincing themselves BASED ON THE EVIDENCE THEY LEARN ABOUT. That's the difference between fake truth-seeking versus ACTUALLY seeking the truth.
Translation process at 0:12:00. The picture at left with the Urim and Thummim as glasses and breastplate. That is the only art depiction found in any church publication. I believe it was from an old children's book on the restoration. The others show JS with the gold plates and a scribe. Sometimes with a curtain between the two.
Great job as always!! Very hard to open your eyes to the real light. Appreciate all the hard work you've done !! Very very informative and eye opening 🙏🙏🙏 please keep up the wonderful job you all do !!
Near the end of your podcast John wonders whether these podcasts will help the people who need to hear them and I would like to say that we are in a time where everyone is questioning everything we have been taught to believe and there is a good chance that when that happens, these are the most informative videos that will at least give them something to think about and references to look up if they don’t believe what they are hearing. I am not a Mormon. I only ran across Mormon Stories via the Teal Swan video because I am spiritual and someone I listen to referenced that particular Mormon Story video. Ever since that one, I have been fascinated to continue listening to many more. So thank you for educating me on a religion I knew nothing about. I was raised Christian (Episcopal), but I don’t identify with any religion now. I have no doubt you are reaching more than you know! 👍
I have heard many times that Joseph had four years from 1823 to 1827 to think about the stories he would put in the BOM. I haven't heard any discussion of the nine months he had between when Martin Harris took the plates in June 1828 and approximately April 1829 when Joseph and Oliver started writing. It seems to me likely that during this period Joseph spent a great deal of time outlining the book. It may even be that Joseph actually wrote some or all of the book during this time period which would help explain why the grammar, punctuation and spelling are so bad. After all, Oliver was relatively well-educated and it seems unlikely to me that he would have just written whatever ungrammatical words that came out of Joseph's mouth. This would also help explain why Oliver and Joseph were able to write more than four times faster than Joseph and Martin wrote. I don't think Joseph used the stone in the hat unless other people were around. I realize that this is just speculation but I think it is interesting speculation. I don't think we will ever know just how the translation was really done because all of the actors, including Joseph, Oliver, Martin and Emma were accomplished liars when it was to their advantage. Remember, Oliver's law partner claimed that Oliver admitted to him that the BOM was a fraud and Oliver apologized to his Methodist congregation for his involvement with Mormonism.
So my story, at 5 my hamster ran away in the yard and my mom told me to pray about it and obviously it didn't come back so I became skeptical about the existence of God and the legitimacyof the church. I constantly was asking questions, and I was very obsessed with ancient egypt as a child which would come into play later as a teenager. I remember being told I couldn't swim on Sundays because Satan controls the water and all sorts of other rules I didn't see the logic in and felt weird about. I tried to play sick every Sunday and always told my parents that I didn't believe and that I had a bad feeling whenever I went to church. They were always mad and upset over my antics. I remember watching that South Park episode as a young teenager with my Dad when it came out and that was the last catalist for me completely thinking it was all bs. I asked him, "Wait do we seriously believe he put his head in a hat? Is this real??" 😂 I just thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever. So then I started looking up everything online and I read about all of the things that didn't add up, the things I knew about Egypt did not match up and I tried showing this to my parents after I gathered a bunch of proof I found and my mom would not even hear it. I even went to BYU because I figured it was the cheapest school that offered 4 year degrees and it wasn't a party dchool so I could focus on my education, but I just did not fit in and couldn't do it anymore so I dropped out one night and went home. Few years later I did psychedelics and realized how brainwashed I was and it's bern a journey unraveling that all the last 10 years. I've been an atheist for a long time now. I did come out as an atheist to my mom a few years back and I'd never seen her so upset in my life. She cried and said, "Just don't tell me you're a liberal or you can get the hell out of my car!" I haven't told my Dad or anyone else after that reaction. I'm waiting for my grandpa to pass away before I ever decide to say anything to anyone again.
That’s all it’s about, truth, which the power and importance of is highly underestimated and unknown by many a mormon that profess to know it! Thanks! Great show!
@@randyjordan5521 They have written a book, or a story for a purpose. Was it all true, that has been put down on paper, the people who read it, have to decide themselves.
I can wrap my head around the stone in the hat, I believe God can do things any way he wishes. What makes me upset is the cover up. I was not taught the hat method. I spent two years teaching that lie. As you said, it's not the break in, it was the cover up.
@@randyjordan5521 That'd why I absolutely love Mormon Stories stated goal. To provide the information so we all can have informed consent if we choose to join or stay. If they were truthful about it all and people still wanted to sign up or stay, good for them. But by all that's holy and sacred follow your own edict and be honest in you dealings with your fellow man/woman.
One way to approach this question is to ask the LDS member if someone from Scientology tells them UP FRONT about Xenu and what "Going Clear" means, both "spiritually" and financially - would they want to join Scientology on the spot? There is a reason that Scientology doesn't reveal the Xenu story until the member has spent over 120,000$ dollars to even get to the point where the cornerstone of the theology is revealed to the member. People can convince themselves of a lot if they will lose a massive amount of money (cough cough - tithing the same amount over a lifetime) or they wasted a lot of time ( decades of devotion) or they will risk their family and community. And learning about Xenu is just one step - they do other things to keep you on the hook - so please don't think that learning this little nugget of truth is the culmination of Scientology because it isn't. There is even more weirdness to follow. That's why they want kids to go on a mission and then get married ASAP... they know babies will come quickly as well because of the sexual repression culture... and by then the hook is embedded pretty deep. _Especially_ if the believer is also employed by a church member.
I logged on to the preach my gospel website last night and in the first lesson still a picture of Joseph with the plates. When are they going to start teaching investigators the truth and show Joseph with his head in the hat. It kills me that with all they have "admitted" by publishing a series of explanations about the history of the church and then telling no one about them. When I started going through my faith crisis I had to convince my bishop that the gospel topic essays were put out by the church as I had printed a couple of them and showed them to him he told me that I was mistaken and that he thought these had been published by an "anti-mormon" group. He said it took him over an hour to even find them on the church site. My stake president had never heard of them. I do not think that Jesus would try to hide his teachings and the bringing forth of the "true gospel" by using deceptive practices. I am so glad to not buy into these lies from the leaders of the church. I realize that the church has no control over what goes into their books and buildings as the artists that come up with these are the only able to produce artwork displaying a false narrative.
These episodes are really interesting, especially to someone who has never been involved in the LDS church. It really is dismaying that so many people have been deceived over the years, many intelligent and common sensical leaders. Joseph Smith was a shaman-type deceiver to lied to thousands for his own greedy ambitions and sexual deviance.
In regard to speaking up (at 54:00) - I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian denomination (the Church Of Christ; no, I'm not referring to the Mormon church here), and based on fundamentalist Christian interpretation of the Bible, the doctrine of young earth creationism is treated as an important Bible teaching (based on fundamentalist Christian literalistic interpretation of stories Genesis). When I was in college and taking science classes and learning in detail about relevant aspects of science, and thus seeing personally just how extensively fact-based these areas of science that I'd been taught are all wrong really are (for me personally, the whole process of me working through various issues took about 3-1/2 years - yeah, it was a lot of studying on my part), I looked back on the way things were taught in my church as a "culture of disinformation" based on the fundamental religious employed to disparage science in trying to prop up religious beliefs that are in fact factually wrong. That's when I walked away from that denomination. (I found it merely ironic when elders from the specific congregation I had been a member of at the time came to visit me months later to see where my thinking was at, upon which they "disfellowshipped" me - think of that as being like "excommunication" - because I had already walked away from the church months before.) But at 54:17 when a "culture of fear and intimidation" is mentioned - that totally reminded me of the "culture of disinformation" that the church I was in (and so many other fundamentalist Christian churches) literally rely on to perpetuate their beliefs - including the constant brainwashing of teaching that if you don't believe these particular religious teachings they're promoting then you're rejecting what God said in "God's Word" so you can't be pleasing to God (and, of course, you're in danger of going to hell when you die). I'm decades removed from that experience (that was in 1983), but I still remember the pain of that process. Indeed, in the words of John, I still get fired up about frauds promoting bogus pseudoscience, and every so often I still get into lengthy discussions challenging the false claims creationists make and taking them to task by pointing out and explaining in detail various scientific facts that prove why their claims about science are false and also dismantling the arguments they use by explaining the fallacies they're built on.
Warren Jeff's and his compound is closer to Joseph Smith and the original teachings of Joseph Smith. Modern Mormons do not like to hear that but it's the truth.
25:35 Even as a TBM, the "behind a sheet" method of translation (that would receive only a little attention), never sat well with me. I always thought that he could be doing anything behind the curtain, like reading from a script.
My thoughts are why would OC keep writing without seeing the plates, why Joseph Smith not show him... it seems illogical, as Spock would say... I know myself I'm not spending endless hours writing down things without seeing the plates..I know seeing is believing...and, really why would Joseph have to hide them from OC,? Doesn't the church teach beware of secret societies?.. I was early 30s, when I converted years ago. I was in a part of life guess I wanted to believe... I think that's the key, look at most converts... many are at questionable or life changing events that happened recently, they are more open... people who are secure in life, relationships, jobs, family, friends, financial...are probably less likely to listen to the missionaries let alone convert..and, that's whether you're using golden plates or a rock in a hat!!
At 1:31:28. The total BM being done with the seer stone in a top hat is probably the best explanation. There were stories of the Urim and Thummim (whether separate stones or fashioned as a set of eyeglasses) and the breastplate however they were rarely depicted in artwork released by the church. In only know a book of BM stories for children that had the picture. However Martin Harris also talked about the top hat. So the 116 pages in part may have used a seer stone.
A smart phone is a complex engineered device composed of hardware and software. The "supernatural" does not need to be invoked to explain how a smart phone or any of its parts work. However, one has to believe in the "supernatural" to believe in seer stones. As an engineer, I was deeply offended by the stupidity of comparing a smart phone to a seer stone.
The phenomenon you guys talk about around the 35:00 mark is exactly what I'm going through now. I've been extremely surprised that some of my best friends, some of the most intelligent people I know, are so unwilling to even look at information that runs contrary to the truth judgments they've already made. It's even worse when leaders of the church tell people not to talk with those who doubt or have left. Absolutely ridiculous.
If Joseph did translate it out of a hat what does that mean? He just made up the entire complex Book of Mormon word for word? That’d be an actual miracle..
As a never mormon I have felt the same way recently about what I was taught on the book of Revelation. That this literal si-fy "Left Behind" version was from this one guy Darby's interpretation brought to America post civil war era, and spread through the south. I've heard it said that Real theology gets taught in Universities and seminaries not pulpits.
Man, I remember watching that old church movie and really bonding with Joseph Smith. It's really staggering to find he had many many lies about this church's formation.
Since there has been so many different publishers of The book of Mormon using different manuscripts of that book have you compared the books very much. There has been great discrepancies between some of the publishers printed books. It's been said by some researchers that the original manuscripts did not have very much punctuation which could easily change the words or meaning of a sentence when you change the punctuation on it. It's also been said that the way the different publishers break up the sentences and paragraphs and the numbering systems are completely different and it's hard to compare books because they have the same or similar wording with different punctuation and different numbers the way they break up the paragraphs and sentences. And one time when I was doing some research I noticed that there was at least six different publishers of the Book of Mormon. Some were churches, some were Universities, some are other private organizations that were trying to find the most original documentation or manuscripts to do the work from because supposedly there were several different manuscripts that were backups of manuscripts. I have the Utah publication. I have the independence publication by The Community of Christ, herald house publication. I also have another publication by the Zara Hamlet foundation and there's another University and some other organizations that have their own publication of the book of Mormon and they're all different from each other. Some people even claim that the book of Mormon was a fictitious copy of the "View of the Hebrews" which was written by somebody else right before the book of Mormon was first published in 1830 and that book can still be found online because of the controversy. There are also a great number of similarities between the Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews which puts it under great scrutiny! Anybody at all who says they have studied the book of Mormon extensively have obviously or should have studied more than just one publication of the book of Mormon. And any church or organization that claims to have the only original manuscript of the book of Mormon is either ignorant or lying!!!!! I believe it's common knowledge of the original manuscript that the printers copy went to a outside printer because the early church did not have their own printing company so the printer of that outside printing company did the punctuation and sentence and paragraphs separations and did not have any clue what they were actually supposed to mean as far as understanding the text. And then later copies of the book of Mormon most or at least the two main churches have checked and changed some of the punctuation to make it more correct as far as they understand it!!! The early publications are the ones that say written by Joseph Smith because the early publication company would not and I mean absolutely would not put written by God or translated by Joseph Smith from God or from Golden plates or anything like that that was the only way the printer would print it was written by Joseph Smith later copies did not have that because the churches involved had their own printing companies and can put anything in there they wanted!!! I read that one copy went to the printer. Another copy was stored in the foundation of the Navoo house in nauvoo Illinois for safekeeping or for historical reasons, a time capsule and their other copies, the Joseph Smith family may have kept a copy of the original manuscript. Other copies I don't know where they were stored or who was in charge of them. I know that Emma had the original and probably only handwritten transcript of Joseph Smith's version of the Bible so into her clothing when she and another church members snuck away in the middle of the night to save their lives! They did not want to follow Brigham Young!!! They also felt that Joseph Smith's newer version of the Bible must not fall into Brigham Young's possession!!! Because he did not trust bring him Young when he was alive. And Brigham Young was his cousin! In fact Brigham Young was a suspect of being painted up like an Indian who was in the Indian party who murdered Joseph Smith Hiram Smith and another church leader at Carthage Illinois under the cover of darkness when they were supposed to be on a different mission but were spotted there and their lives were threatened if they'd ever told anyone!
Every conference we sustain these guys as seers but what do they seer? TBMs please give us an example of using the seer stone to bless us today......Answer... crickets.
I just listened to episode three and towards the end I am a little frustrated with how people approach Mike saying that he led them astray and that he needs to find something for them to believe in. This was mentioned in the last 10 minutes of the episode in the wrapup comments if I am remembering correctly. First of all, if you led them astray with your research and factual content, I would be willing to believe that their testimony is based on whoever presented the gospel to them: a missionary or parent not the actual gospel of the church. My second point is you finding something for them to believe in or telling them what to believe in? I would just like to say that people are called sheep for a reason. It is their own responsibility to come up with what they believe in. What religion to believe in or not believe in is actually a political conversation and a whole other topic if oppressed people. I loved the episode. It was very informative. Thank you for your work and your time.
I’m not a Mormon and never was but I grew up and worked with many Mormons. It’s about time exposing the falsehood. We also need to research the beginning of Christian religion. A interesting book written by James S. Gallant and Warren Fahdy Creating Christ, points out how the Romans created Christianity.
It is my understanding that Moroni reclaimed possession of the gold plates upon completion of the BofM and took them to heaven. I am wondering if there are other examples anywhere else in any scripture; old testament, new testament, quran, etc., in which an alloy ascends to the ethereal heavens?
Yeah. You have to wonder why they didn't just keep them in the heavenly storage warehouse all along. What was the point of burying them in a dirty hole in a hill, and risking the possibility that they would fall into the hands of the wrong kind of treasure hunter? All they had to do is send an angel to Moroni when he was finished writing on the plates. "Hi, Moroni, I'm the Angel Doritohah. I'm here to take those precious plates off your hands and schlep them straight up into heaven, where they'll be kept in secure storage for about 1,400 years. You can go now and take a vacation in Florida. You should arrive there at just the right time of year and there are some nice Lamanites there who will treat you right. Just go up to the Land of Moron and then head east for about 2 months and you'll be there. Aren't you glad you don't have to lug these heavy babies around any more?" I guess maybe they didn't have enough angels on staff that were able to handle large parcel deliveries around the time that Moroni was fixin' to bury the plates. It sounds like heaven is not managed as well as we are led to believe.
I'm a late comer to this series, but I loved the Mary Shelley analogy...so true! Frankenstein is a great book too...and written in a relatively short period of time.
Most faithful believe the seer stone is the Urim and Thumim (sp?) and was in the box that contained the plates. The church does not differentiate and clarify that the seer stone(s) are the treasure hunting stones Joseph used earlier in his treasure seeking employment and that he found these cool looking stones while digging a Well!
At 1:04:02 John says the church is beginning to change the narrative that the gold plates are inspired instead of historical. Would someone kindly let me know where to find evidence of this? I need that info in my tool belt for when my family starts harassing me.
God gave Joseph Smith the power to run and fight off the attackers. Well, wouldn't it have been easier for God to just tell Smith to take another route, or just not have the thieves there in the first place?
I've tried to read the Book of Mormon three times but never finished it due to being boring and repetitive. As Samuel Clemens said," It is chloroform in print." You made me want to read it again just for the entertainment value.
At 2:06:18. Dictation versus Translation. I find it interesting that Richard Bushman chose in a talk at Claremont Graduate University to refer to the Book of Mormon translation process. He says Joseph Smith "dictated" the Book of Mormon.
Very interesting topic today, he went here , he went there and he went everywhere. And he had some help, and I mean big help to write the Book of Mormon
Yes, I guess direct copying of Isaiah helps, not to mention the similarities to the book, View of the Hebrews, published in 1823, written by the pastor of the church OC attended
Question: Throughout this interesting series, various presenters often use the word, "correlated." While I understand the definition of this word, as a never-been-LDS person, I don't understand this word in the contexts of this content? TY
Mormon Murders book I read cover to cover showed me Mark Hoffman fooled the General Authorities. I just told my wife I'm done. I left......took my name off the records.
Martin Harris... Was fooled by Smith..... Old Joe scammed us all. I spent time knocking on doors to spread Joe's false gospel. And I'm happy being a Christian now.
“The truth shall set you free”. When I was a believing member of the church, I often told people and thought to myself that all I want is the truth. But it wasn’t until I had a life changing epiphany about the importance of personal integrity that I got the courage to study the churches truth claims with objective intellectual honesty. I had to be willing to lose everything (ie… the association and respect of my community, friends, family, marriage, and even employment) in order to gain the kind of personal integrity that is truly willing to follow whatever the truth dictates. It takes a great deal of courage to even put yourself in the position where you might have to choose between the church, and personal integrity. And I honor anyone who is willing to do it! I love you guys! Thank you for having that courage and encouraging others.
At about 36 minutes in when he says it is a crushing experience that is such an understatement. It is soul wrenching. It took me almost 2 weeks to even bring up that I was having doubts about the historicity to my still believing wife. How ridiculous and wrong it is for a church to deceive and lie and then in conference to tell you that you are at fault for doubting and to just go on with the living the LDS gospel. It will all work out in the end as long as you just ignore the lies and deceit that we have forced down your throat by parents, teachers, leaders, etc. It has taken me almost 2 years to come to terms with this. I would LOVE to sit down for another temple recommend interview and just say that I am as honest in my dealings with my fellow man as the church is with its members. I can guarantee (my opinion) that most leaders of the church could not honestly pass the interview process if they were TRULY honest. How can I support and sustain the leaders of the church when I know that they have in the past and to this day deceive and obfuscate the truth on a daily basis. When I began my faith crisis I was serving as the ward clerk and in my PPE with the stake presidency they could not get me out of that calling fast enough as I could not be trusted to serve in that calling due to my lack of faith in the church truth claims. This is a horrible paragraph and does not even begin to explain what I have and continue to go through in my personal life living with a wonderful and beautiful wife who has stood by me while going through this process. Until you have to live this process it is almost impossible to put into words what we have to deal with due to rampant dishonesty and deceit by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It kills me to even call it that as I cannot believe that Christ would willingly lend his name to this kind of lie. I would guess that he (Christ) would clean out the church offices that would make his actions at the temple seem like a Sunday picnic.
I know you posted this a year ago… but I’m currently going through my deconstruction. It is a devastating process as you say, I am curious how your wife initially reacted and how things are going now. I’ve been struggling for about a year but just recently started doing research, like listening to this podcast. My husband knows I’ve been struggling this whole time, and was sad to know I’ve started research (because in the church that is so frowned upon) I suggested he could maybe listen to this podcast and he pretty much said absolutely not. I asked him why, and he said because he still believes in god. I told him he could do that without the church, and that I understand and I won’t push him to do things he doesn’t want to do… but I’m struggling. I don’t know how to move forward and help him understand my viewpoint. I don’t want to hurt him, and I know how painful this process has been so far for myself. and I don’t want to cause any resentment from him towards me on my part if I start to tell him things or share what I’m learning. I am at a loss. Any words of advice would be helpful.
Hey, I was Ward Clerk too, when I left the church. My wife was also super supportive, as she had also left before me.
@@haleighpratt2909 My aplogies for taking so long to respond. I just saw this and want to let you know that I have never been happier and closer to my wife and family. I think we all know in the back of our minds that something is off but just can't quite place it. Once I started going through this I realized that it makes way more sense that it was all Joseph and not God. I can say that in my case and with my wife it is best to just leave it alone as she does not have any interest in hearing anything negative. She has said that she is very happy for me and that I seem happier. Everyone is on their own path and the last thing a TBM wants to hear is anything that is negative about the church. I still attend sacrament meetings on most Sundays with the exception of fast and testimony meeting. It is funny to hear my wife come home and say that she is so angry with comments made by the teachers or others since I have stepped away and I believe that someday she will start to study some of the history. I do have to say that she was really mad when she saw my peep stone sitting on my desk in my office. She was not amused. Good luck, feel free to reach out to me at any time. If you want my direct email address please let me know and I will be able to respond much quicker to any comments or questions you may have.
@@haleighpratt2909 don’t give up. My wife “stopped believing” several years back, and I was very angry about it. Even though I was more or less inactive at that time, still I had dedicated my entire life to the church. Going on a mission, reading the book of Mormon almost 30 times etc…and I truly thought that it was all true. After many hard years one day it just clicked. It was like I had awakening. And now listening to these podcasts, There’s something satisfying about all the pieces of the puzzle getting put back together. But I would’ve never even given these a chance I had a not had that sort of personal revelation I guess you could call it. I’m so grateful that my wife waited for me to catch up. She saved my life.
@@haleighpratt2909I am going through the same thing. I told my husband I found out a lot and no longer believe and when I wanted to tell him the brain washing rhetoric we were taught to say just automatically poured out of his mouth. It was disturbing. Especially since I knew I would have said all the same stuff only a few months prior.
I feel so bad for Jenn when she said that when she started peeling back the layers at some point she was pleading with God to “please let me find some part of all of this that is true”. It’s truly tough when everything starts to unravel.
This is how I feel as Christianity is unraveling for me. So many facts that were never told to me, and when I try to talk a out them with my family, they don't want to hear it.....the cognitive dissonance is so strong. But I feel like, with given the facts I'm learning about how the Bible was written and how the Christian religion began, I have totally been lied to.
Yup, I remember those prayers
Her entire explanation is accurate. I too felt like my testimony has been shattered and I see the pieces but don’t care to pick any of them up.
This is exactly how it happened for me. 36 years of belief came crashing down in less than a week when I started to actually search for the truth. It was the worst feeling in the world to sit there and have to acknowledge that everything I was taught and believed was a lie.
Yes! I was a “regular” Christian, doing it the “easy” way. But I had l questions that I felt like I needed the answers for, and regular Christianity didn’t have them, but Mormonism did. After finding the answers I was searching for, and realizing that the Church’s answers for those questions aren’t true as well as the doctrine, it’s starts to unravel EVERYTHING.. and I mean everything. Even the faith I had before being exposed to Mormonism
As a believing member I had heard of most of the things that broke my shelf like treasure digging, polygamy, and the BOA among others, but only in the most surface level ways. Once I dug into how all these pieces fit together to weave the giant con and fraud it was impossible to keep them as tiny crumbs to be ignored. They become the narrative when you really learn about them. They are the framework to the whole Mormon story, not just a little detail that should be dismissed. Great work Mike and Mormon stories.
@LDS Discussions true. The question that opened me up to “taking the leap of faith” as you mentioned several times during the presentation was “if it wasn’t true and I could show you, would you even want to know?” What does Mormonism teach? Question with a pure heart and real intent to know for yourself…. I figured I shouldn’t let my ego and entrenched lifestyle in Mormonism stop me from actually following its core stated tenet. Oops….
“Intellectually honest.” How refreshing to listen, learn, release the guilt by being intellectually honest. These podcasts are long breaths fresh air. No more shame. No more hypocrisy (at least for me). Away from the church for eight years now, but not until I found Mormon Stories Podcast and LDS Discussions did I begin to feel free, valid, and honest. Thank you!!!
I’ve never been a Mormon, but this series is very well done. It’s a fascinating exposition of the dangers of motivated reasoning and the perils of self-deceit.
You do realize that you're watching a group of people who are highly motivated to point the church in a bad light, right? I mean even if they weren't - do you consider that these people are looking at all of these matters and saying "How would I know if this is actually true?" I think it's easy to tell just by the fact that they intentionally lie and malign on every episode. Whatever they say that is true is really discredited by that sort of behavior because it shows mal intent.
@@daretobeamormon The plain fact is that they are making reasoned assessments of the evidence. Their motivations are irrelevant. It sounds like you are looking for ways to dismiss the facts.
@@davethebrahman9870 facts is a strong word for a lot of what is said in this video. Some of it is blatantly false. Some is a stretch or misrepresentation. Some is true - but the "therefore" is a stretch. Some is just true. People who talk about "facts" a lot aren't usually very consistent in their logical reasoning. They apply that test where they want to - usually on a lot less than fact. Not saying that's you - I wouldn't know. In any case, what I can say about you is that you're sorely mistaken if you think motivations are ever irrelevant. You know absolutely nothing of science, for one subject, if you think that's the case.
I try never to dismiss facts in any case.
@@daretobeamormon I usually find that people who want to argue about what a ‘fact’ is are on the losing side of an argument. Perhaps you could point out a few of the ‘blatantly false’ statements in the video.
@@davethebrahman9870 well, I don't see any truth to that. You say something is a fact - and what? Everyone should say, yes sir - those are the magic words? In any case, you can start with the huge section of the video dedicated to the copied script of characters from the plates. That is not an authentic document. Nobody even claims that came from Joseph Smith or Martin Harris and the evidence it was copied from their original is complete conjecture. Furthermore all of the claims that having enough hebrew(ish) or Egyptian(ish) characters on plates would fill an enormous volume of plates to be the length of the Book of Mormon is making so many assumptions that there is no fact to at all. It is perfectly plausible that the characters would've fit on that size of documents. There's also no claim that the plates were solid gold. They were gold in color and contained gold. Depending on the ore used to make them the weight is certainly plausible as well. All of these things are also conjecture - but the point is, Joseph makes a claim and you look back 200 years and say "Well, here's a bunch of facts I made up about that - which if things were the way I am saying they were it would disprove your story..." that's a convenient argument to get to stab into the dark and make up facts all this time later - like how many unknown characters it would take to write an english equivalent on a gold plated leaflet, or how much an unknown ore would weigh on said unknown leaflets.
The Book of Mormon has witnesses of the plates. They made and signed claims. There is nothing about the complaints being given that in any way comes from the actual claims made. These are imaginary concerns. That's just to speak of one section of the arguments being made - this sort of issue runs all the way through it on every subject. I'm not someone who will bear my spiritual witness to you when presented with "facts". It's just precisely as you suggested should not be done - what exactly is your idea of a fact because these are not what I would consider facts. I also don't consider the authenticity of the Book of Mormon a fact. I believe it is a claim - which I believe to be factual. That's a really different category. I have the intellectual honesty to differentiate the two, but also don't think an objective investigator would be swayed by the concerns being brought up here unless you just take these people as unmotivated objective truth seekers. It's clear to me from how they present their material that they are not that.
This series is unbelievably informative and well done. Respectful and sensitive, yet brutally honest and "true"... pardon the irony. Thank you Mormon stories!!!
Even in the Church's article in 2015 admitting that the BoM was translated with JS's face in a hat, that article had 3 pictures of JS looking at the plates. As if they expected members not to read the article, but just look at the pictures.
I don't know where I was, but I just heard rock in hat about Apr 2019, and I'm in the church almost 30years, convert.
@@user-bw3fl7fj9wthankful you heard the truth now!
Wow! If deception alone doesn't stand out to people.... Just wow.
As someone who just recently came out of the church, thank you for these videos. My bubbles wasnt ready to be bust two years ago but it deflated on it's own and these have helped me gain a better understanding.
You can’t penetrate the bubble. But - you are a lifeline for those finding their way out!
In the end even the most protected bubble can pop….it’s coming…🎈💥
Having been a lifelong Mormon, and finding it hard to find someone in my circle to discuss doubts (historical facts), these podcasts are a Godsend. Your work on this is invaluable.
Also, just realized that this is only 3 days old! Can’t wait for the rest of this series!
It's been a year.. Where did you end up?
@@SpartacusMA1 Still wrestling with God. I flirt with nihilism as I search for some semblance of meaning.
At the time of writing, I would say I was physically in, mentally out. Now, I occasionally attend in hopes that I'll still find community, and will continue to do so until I find another community. I periodically revisit claims that argue for and against Mormon truth claims in hopes that I'll gain further clarity and have better depth of knowledge for those who ask me questions about my faith journey. I still leave an open mind that I could be wrong in believing that the Mormon Church's claims are all false, but all signs point to the contrary.
@@calebhensley1267 Hey! I'm so glad to hear back from you!
It may be because I found skepticism before I left the church, but once I found out it wasn't true, I left god behind as well. I also flirted with nihilism and regretted it...although I guess I still have a somewhat nihilistic mindset.
These are definitely piercing the bubble. Thank you for your gentleness in addressing these topics. After a mission and 38 years...I've been doing a lot of thinking.
Mike's commentary consistently follows the most logical conclusions.
People complain but I really like the longform shows. Also John is fantastic when he let's loose.
Thank you, thank you for the truth, it is very difficult for older people to change who have been in the Mormon religion for a long time and raised their children in it. So many emotions for them. I pray every day that the Mormon people will see the true light of Jesus. God Bless you all, this is so needed and necessary!!
So many LDS members came to Christ in genuine conversion. But salvation or forgiveness is a pure faith in nothing but grace as the only begotten son of God, his sinless life and resurrection from the dead. As soon as other requirements are introduced, that faith is compromised. Attention is immediately redirected to following a false prophet. By the time you figure it out, you are highly invested and strongly indoctrinated. You tend yo continue on in a comfortable pretense of faith. But in doing so, you subject your children to an indoctrination that will lead them into an inability to ever trust in Christ alone. Plus the teachings that are in direct opposition to the actual word of God.
Mike ! You are the man !! I appreciate the way you handle these issues of the doctrine. Nothing but integrity 👍🏼
Great comment by Mike starting at 2:59:56. I could not agree more that people are not leaving the church because of you or anyone else. I had never heard of you or your site until I was in full blown faith crisis. Luckily someone told me about your site and it allowed me to find great info. about the issues I was dealing with. I wish the church would have something to address these serious issues rather than just labeling us a lost, misguided or apostates when we are just trying to work out the difference between what we were taught vs. the facts. Keep up the great work. You have great guests and treat them with respect rather than mocking and laughing as is found on some of the other sites out there that condemn you and others like you for doing research and providing honest facts.
Sorry to respond a year later! Just found this series. I've never been Mormon, but was raised by a toxic Protestant minister. Deconstructed years ago, but never found such healing and community til I landed here. I think the Catholics and definitely some brands of Muslims are much better at dealing with doubt and questioning. Maybe it's their maturity as faith traditions? I really don't know. I'm not in a hurry to wrap myself up in yet another set of fantasies and delusions.
I like how the "shorter" episodes of Mormon Stories are still like 3 hours long. Don't get me wrong, I love it though.
😂😂😂
I’ve grown up in Utah for all my life. I have always felt like an outsider and afraid to speak up. Ashamed of my beliefs. For the first time in my life I finally know the church isn’t true. I know my heart has been telling me what’s right and I no longer feel like I’m the crazy one in the room.
👏🩵
30ish years As BIC mormon and about 7 years out.
I have only heard about puting thing on the shelf until it breaks. But Jen backpack is more accurate. You have to carry this with you. Every time you find out something new that was not taught or taught 100% you carry that. And one day it get to heavy and you can't not carry it or something breaks but and now you see everything that you tucked away. But unlike the shelf you can't just throw it away. You have to light the load of and mend the backpack. And carry at lest some of it with you because that is so ingrained into you. But you now can also share it with other on your travels through life with people that are ready to listen.
Thank you Jen for a better metaphor I going to try to use this going forward
I remember the paintings on the wall of the church houses... Joseph at a desk, lamp, with O.C. looking at the plates and translating.. It feels like a trick.
Exactly!! Never heard anything different until UA-cam videos a few years ago.
If it wasn't for the internet, that would still be all the average Mormon would know. The truth being revealed is just damage control to "CYA" .
Sounds to me like "The Philosophies of Men Mingled with Scripture".
Thank you for writing these Essays and making them Available.
Thanks Mike and John. In a time of confusion and frustration, this was helpful. Have believed this for many years, but was never able to consolidate my ideas. Appreciate your time and efforts. Information is a problem for the church. Much like slavery, you can’t let the slaves learn. No harm in listening and then making a choice.
I wish all this fascinating material could be put into a book. I would buy the book immediately. Yeah, I'm a never-Mormon, but I have long been an amateur Mormonologist. I love this so much! I guess I'm not the person this is all aimed at, but the process of looking at these documents is important on many levels.
On this discussion about lengthly documents and podcasts... That's what's so great about the CES Letter. It's short and to the point. Like what Mark Twain said "I'm sorry I didn't have time to write a short letter".
After hearing the officially promoted "First Vision" story, it always seemed odd to me when they then turn around (when talking about the miracle of the Book of Mormon) and try to portray Joseph Smith as being a virtually illiterate farm boy who couldn't really read or write and couldn't string together a complete sentence to save his life. I remember watching a visitors center movie and seeing illustrations that purported to show Joseph Smith, at age 14, studiously reading the KJV Bible, implying that reading the bible, with comprehension, was well within his abilities. The movie then goes on to tell us that Joseph Smith was particularly inspired when he read the following passage: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” (James 1:5).
Well, if he has no problem, at age 14, reading and understanding passages like that from the bible, why should we then think that several years later, when he is in his early twenties, he somehow became more illiterate than he was at age 14 and somehow became unable to even speak in coherent sentences? Doesn't make sense at all. And to top it off, he wasn't doing any of the actual writing anyway, since he always had a scribe there to help him out (like Tom Sawyer always had someone there to help him paint fences, when that chore needed to be done). So Joseph Smith didn't even have to be a gud spelerr and punktchooater neeether.
I remember teaching my friends that Joseph Smith Jr. Had gold Plates on a table partially covered up.... And the other person Oliver Cowdery was there.... Sometimes Emma as Joe's scribes. I never talked with them about a seer stone unless on my mission the non member would bring it up. I looked at my companion and said huh? Lol..... Then we'd change the subject to the urim and thumbum forgive my spelling. I knew about the spectacles etc from Seminary. I remember at a youth camp activity seeing the things on display like the bloody shirts from Joseph Smith Jr and Hyrum Smith. I think he probably had a set of tin plates painted gold or something from a Black Smith but it's left to a lot of speculation and imagination I guess. Just my thoughts. Lol
The disclaimers (i.e. you don't want to hurt the church) make you sound so gentle and harmless, but I find it highly ironic (in a funny sort of way), that your very diplomatic approach actually has a much more powerful effect than would an "in your face - bring it on" type of approach, which may turn away many listeners. The evidence you, ever so gently, throw out at this organization all but completely disarms them. They have almost no leg to stand on anymore. It's amazing and so refreshing!
Yes ! Those employed by the church, their job is to promote faith ! You said it best Mike, in their minds it must be more important to promote faith than to search for truth 👍🏼
I say that in my videos a lot
I’m not Mormon and don’t even know a lot about the religion , but I’m so fascinated with history. This series has been fascinating.
This information is able to penetrate the bubble. Thank you for your work.
Great job Mike! This series has been excellent. I look forward to watching all 50 episodes.
Why do you consider excommunication from a corrupt organization to be a punishment??? It's a badge of honor! You are testifying of actual truth in the face of a powerful and intimidating organization. You are a hero! You have found the truth and the truth has made you free.
I think that's a matter of personal interpretation. Some people want to feel more in control of their exit, others want to make the church go to the extra effort of excommunication.
These are awesome. My light switch is on.
Can we get a series number put in the title block so it's easy to figure out where this episode fits with the others? Keep up the good work
I am leaving and I wish I could not know all this stuff now. I wish I could have known when I was younger. I don't know how many people I turned off by trying to help them understand "the truth" of the church. Now I know there was no truth and I feel gutted. Its NOTHING I would wish on anyone else.
These videos need to be in a playlist.
Agreed.
I was talking to an apologist last week who tried gaslighting. He said all this information about a seer stone and top hat were readily available. Yet what he gave me as sources were largely older material that is out of print, not available online and not in Deseret Book stores. I am compiling an annotated bibliography of all sources on the top hat theory of BM translation. I will provide that free of charge to anyone who is interested. I would be interested if anyone can send sources of what they have. I have looked at a recent video called "A Day for the Eternities" where a top hat appears in the translation process. It shows on some web sites. When I watch the video copy link on the church website that image has been edited out, in white to blend in with the gold plates which are in a cloth bag.
This is such important work! Thank you for making it readily available
This is helping me see the bubble, and how weird it is. Thank you for the information.
From the treasure digging to now knowing about the rock in the hat it seems JS was clearly into the occult. Whether he knew it or not!
Thanks for doing this. I stumbled on your series of podcasts with Chris Shelton about the history of Scientology. I was really surprised by all the parallels between the two religions. I'm excited to hear the detailed history of Mormonism now.
Lol! For a long time South Park was all I knew about Mormons beliefs. That was a great episode
The point at the beginning of this video is very correct (the analogy of a room with brick walls, and the difference between looking at one brick with a flashlight versus looking at all of the bricks by lighting the entire room). You can't convince anyone of anything until that person is ready and willing to EXAMINE THE EVIDENCE FOR THEMSELVES and not merely confine themselves to only what they've been taught by some specific group but look at ALL of the evidence - and if they actually do that, then it's not you convincing them of anything at all, it's THEM convincing themselves BASED ON THE EVIDENCE THEY LEARN ABOUT. That's the difference between fake truth-seeking versus ACTUALLY seeking the truth.
Translation process at 0:12:00. The picture at left with the Urim and Thummim as glasses and breastplate. That is the only art depiction found in any church publication. I believe it was from an old children's book on the restoration. The others show JS with the gold plates and a scribe. Sometimes with a curtain between the two.
1:13:14. Jen is explaining exactly how I’m feeling now that the blinders are off 💔 I literally feel heartbroken
Meeting Sandra with my wife and two children was amazing. Living in Orem two years blew my mind.
Great job as always!!
Very hard to open your eyes to the real light.
Appreciate all the hard work you've done !! Very very informative and eye opening 🙏🙏🙏 please keep up the wonderful job you all do !!
Near the end of your podcast John wonders whether these podcasts will help the people who need to hear them and I would like to say that we are in a time where everyone is questioning everything we have been taught to believe and there is a good chance that when that happens, these are the most informative videos that will at least give them something to think about and references to look up if they don’t believe what they are hearing. I am not a Mormon. I only ran across Mormon Stories via the Teal Swan video because I am spiritual and someone I listen to referenced that particular Mormon Story video. Ever since that one, I have been fascinated to continue listening to many more. So thank you for educating me on a religion I knew nothing about. I was raised Christian (Episcopal), but I don’t identify with any religion now. I have no doubt you are reaching more than you know! 👍
I have heard many times that Joseph had four years from 1823 to 1827 to think about the stories he would put in the BOM. I haven't heard any discussion of the nine months he had between when Martin Harris took the plates in June 1828 and approximately April 1829 when Joseph and Oliver started writing. It seems to me likely that during this period Joseph spent a great deal of time outlining the book. It may even be that Joseph actually wrote some or all of the book during this time period which would help explain why the grammar, punctuation and spelling are so bad. After all, Oliver was relatively well-educated and it seems unlikely to me that he would have just written whatever ungrammatical words that came out of Joseph's mouth. This would also help explain why Oliver and Joseph were able to write more than four times faster than Joseph and Martin wrote. I don't think Joseph used the stone in the hat unless other people were around. I realize that this is just speculation but I think it is interesting speculation. I don't think we will ever know just how the translation was really done because all of the actors, including Joseph, Oliver, Martin and Emma were accomplished liars when it was to their advantage. Remember, Oliver's law partner claimed that Oliver admitted to him that the BOM was a fraud and Oliver apologized to his Methodist congregation for his involvement with Mormonism.
So my story, at 5 my hamster ran away in the yard and my mom told me to pray about it and obviously it didn't come back so I became skeptical about the existence of God and the legitimacyof the church. I constantly was asking questions, and I was very obsessed with ancient egypt as a child which would come into play later as a teenager. I remember being told I couldn't swim on Sundays because Satan controls the water and all sorts of other rules I didn't see the logic in and felt weird about. I tried to play sick every Sunday and always told my parents that I didn't believe and that I had a bad feeling whenever I went to church. They were always mad and upset over my antics. I remember watching that South Park episode as a young teenager with my Dad when it came out and that was the last catalist for me completely thinking it was all bs. I asked him, "Wait do we seriously believe he put his head in a hat? Is this real??" 😂 I just thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever. So then I started looking up everything online and I read about all of the things that didn't add up, the things I knew about Egypt did not match up and I tried showing this to my parents after I gathered a bunch of proof I found and my mom would not even hear it. I even went to BYU because I figured it was the cheapest school that offered 4 year degrees and it wasn't a party dchool so I could focus on my education, but I just did not fit in and couldn't do it anymore so I dropped out one night and went home. Few years later I did psychedelics and realized how brainwashed I was and it's bern a journey unraveling that all the last 10 years. I've been an atheist for a long time now. I did come out as an atheist to my mom a few years back and I'd never seen her so upset in my life. She cried and said, "Just don't tell me you're a liberal or you can get the hell out of my car!" I haven't told my Dad or anyone else after that reaction. I'm waiting for my grandpa to pass away before I ever decide to say anything to anyone again.
We need to have reformed Egyptian font available for us to use. Because I totally would.
😂😂
That’s all it’s about, truth, which the power and importance of is highly underestimated and unknown by many a mormon that profess to know it! Thanks! Great show!
How in the fetch, always funny when John says that :)
I am only just recently learning the extent of the seer stone and top hat. It is like I was told something else about translation for decades.
I did believe for 66 plus years the little Joe used the URIM and THUMMIM to translate. What a bummer.
It’s not “like” you were told something else, you WERE told something else!
@@korvaamiko66 exactly
@@randyjordan5521 Well good for anybody who believes it. I don’t.
@@randyjordan5521 They have written a book, or a story for a purpose. Was it all true, that has been put down on paper, the people who read it, have to decide themselves.
Love listening to Mike ! so much interesting and kind guy ! Love Mormon Stories Podcast and John too. Thanks so much🙏
I can wrap my head around the stone in the hat, I believe God can do things any way he wishes. What makes me upset is the cover up. I was not taught the hat method. I spent two years teaching that lie. As you said, it's not the break in, it was the cover up.
@@randyjordan5521 That'd why I absolutely love Mormon Stories stated goal. To provide the information so we all can have informed consent if we choose to join or stay. If they were truthful about it all and people still wanted to sign up or stay, good for them. But by all that's holy and sacred follow your own edict and be honest in you dealings with your fellow man/woman.
One way to approach this question is to ask the LDS member if someone from Scientology tells them UP FRONT about Xenu and what "Going Clear" means, both "spiritually" and financially - would they want to join Scientology on the spot?
There is a reason that Scientology doesn't reveal the Xenu story until the member has spent over 120,000$ dollars to even get to the point where the cornerstone of the theology is revealed to the member. People can convince themselves of a lot if they will lose a massive amount of money (cough cough - tithing the same amount over a lifetime) or they wasted a lot of time ( decades of devotion) or they will risk their family and community. And learning about Xenu is just one step - they do other things to keep you on the hook - so please don't think that learning this little nugget of truth is the culmination of Scientology because it isn't. There is even more weirdness to follow.
That's why they want kids to go on a mission and then get married ASAP... they know babies will come quickly as well because of the sexual repression culture... and by then the hook is embedded pretty deep. _Especially_ if the believer is also employed by a church member.
I logged on to the preach my gospel website last night and in the first lesson still a picture of Joseph with the plates. When are they going to start teaching investigators the truth and show Joseph with his head in the hat. It kills me that with all they have "admitted" by publishing a series of explanations about the history of the church and then telling no one about them. When I started going through my faith crisis I had to convince my bishop that the gospel topic essays were put out by the church as I had printed a couple of them and showed them to him he told me that I was mistaken and that he thought these had been published by an "anti-mormon" group. He said it took him over an hour to even find them on the church site. My stake president had never heard of them. I do not think that Jesus would try to hide his teachings and the bringing forth of the "true gospel" by using deceptive practices. I am so glad to not buy into these lies from the leaders of the church. I realize that the church has no control over what goes into their books and buildings as the artists that come up with these are the only able to produce artwork displaying a false narrative.
These episodes are really interesting, especially to someone who has never been involved in the LDS church. It really is dismaying that so many people have been deceived over the years, many intelligent and common sensical leaders. Joseph Smith was a shaman-type deceiver to lied to thousands for his own greedy ambitions and sexual deviance.
In regard to speaking up (at 54:00) - I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian denomination (the Church Of Christ; no, I'm not referring to the Mormon church here), and based on fundamentalist Christian interpretation of the Bible, the doctrine of young earth creationism is treated as an important Bible teaching (based on fundamentalist Christian literalistic interpretation of stories Genesis). When I was in college and taking science classes and learning in detail about relevant aspects of science, and thus seeing personally just how extensively fact-based these areas of science that I'd been taught are all wrong really are (for me personally, the whole process of me working through various issues took about 3-1/2 years - yeah, it was a lot of studying on my part), I looked back on the way things were taught in my church as a "culture of disinformation" based on the fundamental religious employed to disparage science in trying to prop up religious beliefs that are in fact factually wrong. That's when I walked away from that denomination. (I found it merely ironic when elders from the specific congregation I had been a member of at the time came to visit me months later to see where my thinking was at, upon which they "disfellowshipped" me - think of that as being like "excommunication" - because I had already walked away from the church months before.)
But at 54:17 when a "culture of fear and intimidation" is mentioned - that totally reminded me of the "culture of disinformation" that the church I was in (and so many other fundamentalist Christian churches) literally rely on to perpetuate their beliefs - including the constant brainwashing of teaching that if you don't believe these particular religious teachings they're promoting then you're rejecting what God said in "God's Word" so you can't be pleasing to God (and, of course, you're in danger of going to hell when you die). I'm decades removed from that experience (that was in 1983), but I still remember the pain of that process. Indeed, in the words of John, I still get fired up about frauds promoting bogus pseudoscience, and every so often I still get into lengthy discussions challenging the false claims creationists make and taking them to task by pointing out and explaining in detail various scientific facts that prove why their claims about science are false and also dismantling the arguments they use by explaining the fallacies they're built on.
Warren Jeff's and his compound is closer to Joseph Smith and the original teachings of Joseph Smith. Modern Mormons do not like to hear that but it's the truth.
25:35 Even as a TBM, the "behind a sheet" method of translation (that would receive only a little attention), never sat well with me. I always thought that he could be doing anything behind the curtain, like reading from a script.
My thoughts are why would OC keep writing without seeing the plates, why Joseph Smith not show him... it seems illogical, as Spock would say... I know myself I'm not spending endless hours writing down things without seeing the plates..I know seeing is believing...and, really why would Joseph have to hide them from OC,? Doesn't the church teach beware of secret societies?..
I was early 30s, when I converted years ago. I was in a part of life guess I wanted to believe...
I think that's the key, look at most converts... many are at questionable or life changing events that happened recently, they are more open... people who are secure in life, relationships, jobs, family, friends, financial...are probably less likely to listen to the missionaries let alone convert..and, that's whether you're using golden plates or a rock in a hat!!
1:19:59 reformed Egyptian looks like a combination of comic sans and Wingdings
At 1:31:28. The total BM being done with the seer stone in a top hat is probably the best explanation. There were stories of the Urim and Thummim (whether separate stones or fashioned as a set of eyeglasses) and the breastplate however they were rarely depicted in artwork released by the church. In only know a book of BM stories for children that had the picture. However Martin Harris also talked about the top hat. So the 116 pages in part may have used a seer stone.
A smart phone is a complex engineered device composed of hardware and software. The "supernatural" does not need to be invoked to explain how a smart phone or any of its parts work. However, one has to believe in the "supernatural" to believe in seer stones. As an engineer, I was deeply offended by the stupidity of comparing a smart phone to a seer stone.
This is incredible. Thank you so much for the work you do 🙏🏼
This is fantastic stuff!
The phenomenon you guys talk about around the 35:00 mark is exactly what I'm going through now. I've been extremely surprised that some of my best friends, some of the most intelligent people I know, are so unwilling to even look at information that runs contrary to the truth judgments they've already made. It's even worse when leaders of the church tell people not to talk with those who doubt or have left. Absolutely ridiculous.
If Joseph did translate it out of a hat what does that mean? He just made up the entire complex Book of Mormon word for word? That’d be an actual miracle..
I was going to finally watch the 6th Sense tonight until Mike spoiled it.
As a never mormon I have felt the same way recently about what I was taught on the book of Revelation. That this literal si-fy "Left Behind" version was from this one guy Darby's interpretation brought to America post civil war era, and spread through the south. I've heard it said that Real theology gets taught in Universities and seminaries not pulpits.
Man, I remember watching that old church movie and really bonding with Joseph Smith. It's really staggering to find he had many many lies about this church's formation.
THANK YOU John...Where was Bushman and the Historians 40 YEARS AGO?
Didn’t want to be excommunicated.
Since there has been so many different publishers of The book of Mormon using different manuscripts of that book have you compared the books very much.
There has been great discrepancies between some of the publishers printed books. It's been said by some researchers that the original manuscripts did not have very much punctuation which could easily change the words or meaning of a sentence when you change the punctuation on it. It's also been said that the way the different publishers break up the sentences and paragraphs and the numbering systems are completely different and it's hard to compare books because they have the same or similar wording with different punctuation and different numbers the way they break up the paragraphs and sentences.
And one time when I was doing some research I noticed that there was at least six different publishers of the Book of Mormon. Some were churches, some were Universities, some are other private organizations that were trying to find the most original documentation or manuscripts to do the work from because supposedly there were several different manuscripts that were backups of manuscripts.
I have the Utah publication. I have the independence publication by The Community of Christ, herald house publication. I also have another publication by the Zara Hamlet foundation and there's another University and some other organizations that have their own publication of the book of Mormon and they're all different from each other.
Some people even claim that the book of Mormon was a fictitious copy of the "View of the Hebrews" which was written by somebody else right before the book of Mormon was first published in 1830 and that book can still be found online because of the controversy. There are also a great number of similarities between the Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews which puts it under great scrutiny!
Anybody at all who says they have studied the book of Mormon extensively have obviously or should have studied more than just one publication of the book of Mormon.
And any church or organization that claims to have the only original manuscript of the book of Mormon is either ignorant or lying!!!!!
I believe it's common knowledge of the original manuscript that the printers copy went to a outside printer because the early church did not have their own printing company so the printer of that outside printing company did the punctuation and sentence and paragraphs separations and did not have any clue what they were actually supposed to mean as far as understanding the text. And then later copies of the book of Mormon most or at least the two main churches have checked and changed some of the punctuation to make it more correct as far as they understand it!!!
The early publications are the ones that say written by Joseph Smith because the early publication company would not and I mean absolutely would not put written by God or translated by Joseph Smith from God or from Golden plates or anything like that that was the only way the printer would print it was written by Joseph Smith later copies did not have that because the churches involved had their own printing companies and can put anything in there they wanted!!!
I read that one copy went to the printer. Another copy was stored in the foundation of the Navoo house in nauvoo Illinois for safekeeping or for historical reasons, a time capsule and their other copies, the Joseph Smith family may have kept a copy of the original manuscript.
Other copies I don't know where they were stored or who was in charge of them.
I know that Emma had the original and probably only handwritten transcript of Joseph Smith's version of the Bible so into her clothing when she and another church members snuck away in the middle of the night to save their lives! They did not want to follow Brigham Young!!!
They also felt that Joseph Smith's newer version of the Bible must not fall into Brigham Young's possession!!! Because he did not trust bring him Young when he was alive. And Brigham Young was his cousin!
In fact Brigham Young was a suspect of being painted up like an Indian who was in the Indian party who murdered Joseph Smith Hiram Smith and another church leader at Carthage Illinois under the cover of darkness when they were supposed to be on a different mission but were spotted there and their lives were threatened if they'd ever told anyone!
Every conference we sustain these guys as seers but what do they seer? TBMs please give us an example of using the seer stone to bless us today......Answer... crickets.
6,000 tablets 1" thick (6,000/12) = 500 feet high. 1/2" thick w/b 250' high, 1/4" thick = 125' high, 1/8" thick = 62.5' high, 1/16" thick = 31.25' high. Wow! Three stories high!
I really enjoyed this!
2:16:45 this part about the ACTUAL "Urim and Thummim" needs to be explained to members.
Never Mormon but I find this so interesting.
I just listened to episode three and towards the end I am a little frustrated with how people approach Mike saying that he led them astray and that he needs to find something for them to believe in. This was mentioned in the last 10 minutes of the episode in the wrapup comments if I am remembering correctly.
First of all, if you led them astray with your research and factual content, I would be willing to believe that their testimony is based on whoever presented the gospel to them: a missionary or parent not the actual gospel of the church.
My second point is you finding something for them to believe in or telling them what to believe in? I would just like to say that people are called sheep for a reason. It is their own responsibility to come up with what they believe in. What religion to believe in or not believe in is actually a political conversation and a whole other topic if oppressed people.
I loved the episode. It was very informative. Thank you for your work and your time.
Another great episode.
I’m not a Mormon and never was but I grew up and worked with many Mormons. It’s about time exposing the falsehood. We also need to research the beginning of Christian religion. A interesting book written by James S. Gallant and Warren Fahdy Creating Christ, points out how the Romans created Christianity.
Jenn=hair goals! So pretty! And smart and warm.
LOVE this series!!
It is my understanding that Moroni reclaimed possession of the gold plates upon completion of the BofM and took them to heaven. I am wondering if there are other examples anywhere else in any scripture; old testament, new testament, quran, etc., in which an alloy ascends to the ethereal heavens?
@LDS Discussions Thanks
Yes, I didn't know we could take solid things to heaven!
Yeah. You have to wonder why they didn't just keep them in the heavenly storage warehouse all along. What was the point of burying them in a dirty hole in a hill, and risking the possibility that they would fall into the hands of the wrong kind of treasure hunter?
All they had to do is send an angel to Moroni when he was finished writing on the plates. "Hi, Moroni, I'm the Angel Doritohah. I'm here to take those precious plates off your hands and schlep them straight up into heaven, where they'll be kept in secure storage for about 1,400 years. You can go now and take a vacation in Florida. You should arrive there at just the right time of year and there are some nice Lamanites there who will treat you right. Just go up to the Land of Moron and then head east for about 2 months and you'll be there. Aren't you glad you don't have to lug these heavy babies around any more?"
I guess maybe they didn't have enough angels on staff that were able to handle large parcel deliveries around the time that Moroni was fixin' to bury the plates. It sounds like heaven is not managed as well as we are led to believe.
I'm a late comer to this series, but I loved the Mary Shelley analogy...so true! Frankenstein is a great book too...and written in a relatively short period of time.
Far out I'm 55 now and go Jen John Mike too!
I like the ranting. :)
Most faithful believe the seer stone is the Urim and Thumim (sp?) and was in the box that contained the plates. The church does not differentiate and clarify that the seer stone(s) are the treasure hunting stones Joseph used earlier in his treasure seeking employment and that he found these cool looking stones while digging a Well!
Omission...this is why, I believe, in a courtroom the take oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and only the truth....
At 1:04:02 John says the church is beginning to change the narrative that the gold plates are inspired instead of historical. Would someone kindly let me know where to find evidence of this? I need that info in my tool belt for when my family starts harassing me.
God gave Joseph Smith the power to run and fight off the attackers. Well, wouldn't it have been easier for God to just tell Smith to take another route, or just not have the thieves there in the first place?
My question is why did they hit him with the guns? Why not just shoot him? Because he couldn’t have got away in that case. 😂
1:18:25 - 1:19:30 is really damning for that being reformed egyptian. That's extremely powerful.
Colorful history..... Treasure digging... Gold Plates fascinating.
I was fascinated when I read about the MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE ! (( 1857)
I've tried to read the Book of Mormon three times but never finished it due to being boring and repetitive. As Samuel Clemens said," It is chloroform in print." You made me want to read it again just for the entertainment value.
At 2:06:18. Dictation versus Translation. I find it interesting that Richard Bushman chose in a talk at Claremont Graduate University to refer to the Book of Mormon translation process. He says Joseph Smith "dictated" the Book of Mormon.
John Hamer and Jon Dehlin they ROCK.
Interesting topic.
Very interesting topic today, he went here , he went there and he went everywhere. And he had some help, and I mean big help to write the Book of Mormon
Yes, I guess direct copying of Isaiah helps, not to mention the similarities to the book, View of the Hebrews, published in 1823, written by the pastor of the church OC attended
Question: Throughout this interesting series, various presenters often use the word, "correlated." While I understand the definition of this word, as a never-been-LDS person, I don't understand this word in the contexts of this content? TY
It means censored and/or edited by the LDS church to be “faith promoting.”
Redefining words is a pretty common cultish practice. Using language to manipulate thought. I grew up JW and there was lots of this kind of crap!
Thanks for letting me a others know the Truth. I was Mormon at least 10 years until l left Mormonism in 1993. Sinserly, Matthew Renner Wisconsin.
Mormon Murders book I read cover to cover showed me Mark Hoffman fooled the General Authorities. I just told my wife I'm done. I left......took my name off the records.
Martin Harris... Was fooled by Smith..... Old Joe scammed us all. I spent time knocking on doors to spread Joe's false gospel. And I'm happy being a Christian now.
You left before finding this stuff out?
Don't worry if mormons get offended or not, just truthful and yes, be persuasive, nothing wrong with that. The leaders had lied the whole members