Mormonism

WHAT IS A MORMON?

Mormon religion starts with Joseph Smith and is similar to Islam and Muhammad. Both claim their visions and instructions were from angels. Muhammad’s material is the basis for the Koran. Joseph Smith’s material is the basis for the Book of Mormon.

Smith claims he was visited by God the Father and Jesus at a grove near his family’s farm. The 14 year old Smith claims he was told all Christian Churches were wrong, their creeds were an abomination, and their leaders’ were all corrupt.

In 1823, Smith claimed an angel, Moroni, told him of a buried set of gold plates, on which was inscribed a record of the ancient American people. Smith was chosen by God to receive the plates. Supposedly, Moroni was a great warrior who lived among the ancient Nephites before he died.

In 1827, Joseph Smith began translating the “Reformed Egyptian” characters from the plates into English using two transparent magical stones. He claimed to be endowed with the gift and power of God to translate the plates. He was joined by a cousin, Oliver Cowdery, who became Smith’s scribe.

Both Cowdery and Smith said John the Baptist visited them in 1829 and bestowed the Aaronic Priesthood on them. Later, the two were ordained into the Melchizedek Priesthood by Peter, James, and John. Joseph Smith knew nothing about hieroglyphics, which led some LDS scholars to speculate he translated the manuscripts by divine inspiration.

He would place his head in a hat with the plates at the bottom; look through the seer stones at the Egyptian markings, and the English translation underneath. He would read it out to Oliver Cowdery who scribed for him. The hat must have been a Texas ten-gallon or the plates were mighty small.

Early Mormons used wine for the sacrament. Smith had a revelation from God that water should be substituted for the wine, as Mormons should not purchase strong drink from their enemies. Three years later, Smith said wine should be used, but it should be made only by Mormons. In 1835 Smith ran a tavern from his home.

Smith became a Mason on March 15, 1842. In the Mormon Temples there is a striking resemblance between the Temple and Freemasonry. Freemasonry, evident in the Temple, is the outside structure of the all-seeing eye, inverted five-pointed Eastern Star, and the clasped hands.

Markings in priesthood garments bear resemblance to the compass, square, and level of Freemasonry. Signs, grips, oaths, and tokens used in Temple ceremonies are similar to those of the Masons.

He claims revelation that plural marriages are a requirement of Mormon males. He had sole authority for binding or unbinding marriages on earth, choosing whomever he desired for a wife, or discharging a wife at any time.

Smith participated in seer stone divinations, used divining rods, talismans, and other elements of ritual magic. His Father and other family members participated in divining and ritual mysticism.

Some attributes of Joseph Smith are:
01. He had forty polygamous marriages,
02. He was against the Masonic Order, but later became a master Mason,
03. He was a temperance leader and a social drinker,
04. A city planner, pacifist, commander-in-chief of military personnel, bank president, and jail escapee,
05. Healer, land speculator, mayor, judge, fugitive from justice, preacher and street wrestler,
06. Declared bankruptcy, trustee of church finances, and a political horse-trader,
07. U.S. Presidential candidate, abolitionist, inciter of riots, and an unwilling martyr.

MORMONISM “GOD THE FATHER”

LDS Apostle Orson Hyde: God, our heavenly Father, was perhaps once a child, and mortal like we ourselves, and rose step by step in the scale of progress, and in the school of advancement; has moved forward and overcome, until he has arrived at the point where he is now.

LDS Apostle Orson Pratt: we were begotten by our Father in heaven; the person of Father in heaven was begotten on a previous heavenly world by his Father; and again, he was begotten by a still more ancient Father; and so on, from generation to generation.

Brigham Young: the Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming Gods like himself; when we have been proven in our present capacity. We are created for the express purpose of growing up from the low estate of manhood, to become Gods like unto our Father in heaven. Our intelligence will increase until we are capable of creating worlds upon worlds and becoming Gods.

President Spencer Kimball: to this end God created man to live in mortality and endowed him with the potential to perpetuate the race, to subdue the earth, to become perfect and to become as God, omniscient and omnipotent.

President Joseph Fielding McConkie: not only is there a long procession of Gods, but he also insisted that these Gods could number in the millions. We are informed there are many earths which have been created, and were created by the Son for the Father. His Father passed through a period of mortality even as he passed through mortality, and as we all are doing. Each Father had a Father, until we come to a stop where we cannot go further, because of our limited capacity to understand.

LDS Apostle John Widtsoe: God and man are of the same race, differing only in their degree of advancement. LDS Apostle Parley P. Pratt: Gods, angels, and men are all of one species, one race, and one great family. LDS Apostle Orson Whitney: the difference between the human and the divine was just the mere matter of “education and development”.

President Joseph Fielding McConkie: there is a God in heaven who is infinite and eternal; who has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s, and who is in fact a resurrected, glorified, perfected, and exalted man; who has all power, all might, and all dominion, and who knows all things; and who in the ultimate and full sense is the Creator, Upholder, and Preserver of all things, both this earth and all worlds, the sidereal heavens, and all things that in them are.

LDS Apostle Orson Hyde: there are Lords many, and Gods many, for they are all called Gods to whom the word of God comes, and the word of God comes to all these kings and priests. But to our branch of the kingdom there is but one God, to whom we owe the most perfect submission and loyalty; yet our God is just as subject to still higher intelligences, as we should be to him.

LDS writer W. Cleon Skousen: through modern revelation, we learn the universe is filled with vast numbers of intelligences, and we further learn that Elohim is God simply because all these intelligences honor and sustain him as such. If he ever does anything to violate the confidence of these intelligences, they would promptly withdraw their support, and the “power” of God would disintegrate. He would cease to be God.

LDS Apostle John Widtsoe: God, the supreme power, cannot conceivably originate matter; he can only organize matter. Neither can he destroy matter; he can only disorganize it…. The doctrine that God made the earth or man from nothing becomes therefore, an absurdity.

Brigham Young: the God of Mormonism cannot be personally present everywhere because he dwells in a finite body. Some would have us believe that God is present everywhere. It is not so.

THE JESUS OF MORMONISM

LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie: virtually millions of the apostate Christendom has abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ. A Mormon Seventy, Bernard P. Brockbank: it is true many of the Christian churches worship a different Jesus than is worshiped by the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints).

LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie: Jesus attained the status of a god in the preexistence. Jesus is the Firstborn of the Father. By obedience and devotion to the truth, he attained the pinnacle of intelligence which ranked him as a God, as the Lord Omnipotent, while as yet in his preexistent state—-Inasmuch, however, as Christ attained Godhood while yet in preexistence, he too stood as a God to the other spirits.

Many LDS leaders: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims that Jesus Christ is the son of God in the most literal sense. The body in which he performed his mission in the flesh was sired by that same Holy Being we worship as God, our Eternal Father.

Many LDS leaders continued: The birth of the savior was as natural as the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood-was begotten of his father in the flesh, and there was nothing unnatural about it. How are children begotten? I answer just as Jesus Christ was begotten of his father….Jesus is the only person who had our heavenly Father as the father of his body.

The official doctrine of the Mormon Church is that Jesus is the literal offspring of God. He has 46 chromosomes: 23 came from Mary, 23 came from God, the eternal Father. They believe Jesus was sired by their god, who is a glorified man, and he had sex with Mary the same as a human has sex.

Spencer W. Campbell: Jesus is the spirit-brother of Lucifer. Long before you were born, a program was developed by your creators….The principal personalities in this great drama were a Father, Elohim, perfect in wisdom, judgment, and person, and two sons, Lucifer and Jehovah.

One of the Mormon Seventy, Milton R. Hunter: It was decided that Jesus, not Lucifer would become the savior of the earth. Mormon educator Jess L. Christensen: Both Jesus and Lucifer were strong leaders, but Jesus was Lucifer’s older brother.

Brigham Young: The Jesus of Mormonism is only one of many saviors. Every earth has its redeemer and every earth has its tempter; and every earth, and the people thereof, in their turn and time, receive all that we receive, and pass through all the ordeals that we are passing through.

Brigham Young: How many Gods there are, I do not know. There was never a time when there were not Gods and worlds, and when men were not passing through the same ordeals that we are passing through. That course has been from all eternity, and it is and will be to all eternity.

Many of the early LDS leaders: Jesus was a polygamist and father. The scripture says that He, the Lord, came walking in the Temple, with his train; I do not know who they were, unless his wives and children.

Early LDS leaders continued: It will be borne in mind that once on a time, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and on careful reading of that transaction, it will be discovered that no less a person than Jesus Christ was married on that occasion. If he was never married, his intimacy with Mary and Martha, and the other Mary whom Jesus also loved, must have been highly unbecoming and improper to say the best of it.

Early LDS leaders continued: The grand reason of the burst of public sentiment in anathemas upon Christ and his disciples, causing his crucifixion, was evidently based upon polygamy, according to the testimony of the philosophers who rose in that age. A belief in the doctrine of a plurality of wives caused the persecution of Jesus and his followers. We might almost think they were Mormons.

To achieve exaltation and become a God, a Mormon has to be married for eternity and continue to produce children in the preexistence. It would be difficult for a Mormon to believe that Jesus was not married.

PRE-EXISTENCE AND THE SECOND ESTATE

Mormon leaders: Heavenly Father became the God of this earth as a result of his worthiness demonstrated on another planet. As far as the creation of this earth, Jesus was aided by many of the noble and Great Spirit children of the Father. These include Michael (the pre-incarnate Adam), Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Peter, James, John, and even Joseph Smith. Mormon leaders: Humans are the literal offspring of Elohim, also known as Heavenly Father, and one of his heavenly wives.

Seventy, Gary J. Coleman: During our pre-mortal existence, Satan attempted to alter the plan which Heavenly Father presented in the great council in heaven. His attempt to do so was rejected by the Father and the majority of the host of heaven. Satan was cast out of Heavenly Father’s presence. Satan and his followers are out to ensnare the hearts of man that he might bring them under subjection to him.

LDS Gospel Principles: Because our Heavenly Father chose Jesus Christ to be our savior, Satan became angry and rebelled. Satan and his followers fought against Jesus and his followers. In this great rebellion, Satan, and all the spirits who followed him, were sent away from the presence of God and cast down from heaven.

LDS Gospel Principles continued: One-third of the spirits in heaven were punished for following Satan: they were denied the right to receive mortal bodies. Because we are here on earth and have mortal bodies, we know that we chose to follow Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father….In our pre-mortal life, we chose the right.

LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie: The pre-existent life was thus a period….undoubtedly an infinitely long one….of probation, progression, and schooling. The spirit hosts were taught and given experiences in various administrative capacities. Some so exercised their agency and so conformed to law as to become “noble and great”; these were foreordained before their mortal births to perform great missions for the Lord in this life.

LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie: Our heavenly parents provided us with a celestial home more glorious and beautiful than any place on earth. We were happy there. Yet they knew we could not progress beyond a certain point unless we left them for a time. They wanted us to develop the God-like qualities that they have. To experience, we needed to choose good over evil.

LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie continued: Our spirits needed to be clothed with physical bodies. We would need to leave our physical bodies at death and reunite with them in the resurrection. Then we would receive immortal bodies like those of our heavenly parents. If we passed our test, we would receive the fullness of joy that our heavenly parents have received.

LDS Apostle George Q. Cannon: We were true in keeping our first estate. The people that are here today stood loyally by God and Jesus, and they did not flinch. If you had flinched, you would not be here with the priesthood upon you. The evidence that you were loyal, true, and did not waver is found demonstrated by the fact that you have received the Gospel and the everlasting priesthood.

Encyclopedia of Mormonism: It is Latter-Day Saint doctrine that living things existed as individual spirit beings and possessed varying degrees of intelligence in an active, conscious spirit state before mortal birth and that the spirit continues to live and function in the mortal body. The revelations teach that pre-mortal spirit bodies have general resemblance to their physical counterparts.

Brigham Young: There are multitudes of pure and holy spirits waiting to take tabernacles; our duty is to prepare tabernacles for them; to take a course that will not drive those spirits into the families of the wicked, where they will be trained in the wickedness, and debauchery of crime. It is the duty of every righteous man and woman to prepare tabernacles for all the spirits they can.

LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith (not Joseph Smith): Called birth control wickedness. When a man and woman agree to limit their offspring to two or three, and practice devices to accomplish this purpose, they are guilty of iniquity which must be punished. Those who willfully and maliciously break this commandment will be damned.

THE DARK SKINNED MORMON

The Book of Mormon opens with a Jewish man, Lehi, who came to America in 587 BC from Jerusalem to escape the Babylonian invasion. He had a wife, Sariah, and four sons Laman, Lemuel, Nephi, and Sam. They crossed the ocean to the Western Hemisphere. Laman and Lemuel were wicked. God punished them and marked them with a skin of blackness.

II Nephi 5:21-23 of the Book of Mormons: God caused the cursing to come upon them, because of their iniquity. Wherefore as they were white, and exceeding fair and delightsome, they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. God said, “I will cause them to be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities. And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixes with their seed. And the Lord spoke it, and it was done.

Brigham Young preached Cain’s mark was the flat nose and black skin. Brigham Young: Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. Brigham Young declared in 1857: I feel to bless this people….you can see men and women who are sixty or seventy years of age looking young and handsome; but let them apostatize, and they will become gray-haired, wrinkled, and black, just like the devil.

LDS President John Taylor: And after the flood, we are told the curse that had been pronounced on Cain was continued through Ham’s wife, as he had married a wife of that seed. And why did it pass through the flood? It was necessary that the devil should have a representative upon the earth as well as God.

LDS Joseph Fielding Smith (not Joseph Smith): There is a reason one man is born black and with other disadvantages, while another is born white with great advantages. The reason is we once had an estate before we came here, and were obedient, more or less, to the laws that were given us there. Those who were faithful in all things there received the greater blessings here, and those who were not faithful received less.

The Book of Mormon predicted the curse could and would be lifted. Original edition of II Nephi 30:6 in 1830: Their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and delightsome people.

In an 1840 edition, the word “white” was “pure”. Later additions of the Book of Mormon went back to using the word white. In 1981, the LDS Church made several revisions to the Book of Mormon. They changed the word white in II Nephi 30:6 from white to pure.

III Nephi 2:15 states that the Lamanites skin color would change after conversion, saying, “And the Lamanites curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites. Joseph Fielding Smith taught “the less valiant spirits who did not perform adequately in the preexistence would be known by their black skin.

LDS Elder George F. Richards: The Negro is an unfortunate man. He has been given a black skin. But that is as nothing compared with that greater handicap that he is not permitted to receive the Priesthood and the ordinances of the temple, necessary to prepare men and women to enter into and enjoy a fullness of glory in the celestial kingdom.

LDS Apostle Mark E. Peterson gave a speech at BYU in 1954, he stated: If that Negro is faithful in all his days, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get a celestial resurrection. In later years, LDS President Kimball said he received a revelation that took away the restrictions barring those of black heritage from Priesthood blessings.

LDS President Kimball made this statement on June 8, 1978: Aware of the promises made by the prophets and presidents of the Church who have preceded us that at some time, in God’s eternal plan, all of our brethren who are worthy may receive the priesthood—-He has heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood. In the same year, October of 1978, the Mormons opened a new temple in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

FAITH OR WORKS

LDS President Spencer Kimball: One of the most fallacious doctrines originated by Satan and propounded by man is that man is saved alone by the Grace of God, that belief in Jesus Christ alone is all that is needed for salvation.

According to LDS, salvation by grace is synonymous with mere resurrection from the dead, which is given to the entire human race on this earth and other planets. This gift is not affected by anything we do here. Everyone from the most righteous to the most wretched will be resurrected and live forever in the next life. Conditional or Individual Salvation goes far beyond a mere resurrection from the dead. It is known as exaltation or godhood.

LDS Bruce McConkie: Salvation in its true and full meaning is synonymous with exaltation or eternal life and consists in gaining an inheritance in the highest of the three heavens within the celestial kingdom….Salvation in the celestial kingdom of God, however, is not by grace alone. Rather, it is salvation by grace coupled with obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.

Unlike resurrection from the dead, exaltation requires a concerted effort on the part of the individual to live according to all the commandments as instructed by the Mormon Church for a person’s entire life. LDS Apostle Francis Lyman: To attain all that is obtained in the celestial kingdom, the full and perfect law of the Father must be observed. LDS Apostle Orson Whitney: It is the fullness of obedience: it is living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Brigham Young: Will everybody be damned except the Latter-Day Saints? “Yes”, said Joseph, “and many of them, unless they take a different course from what they are now taking”. Who will be saved in the celestial kingdom, and go into the presence of the Father and Son? Those only who observe the whole law, who keep the commandments of God.

LDS President John Taylor: It is only those who can abide a celestial glory and obey a celestial law that will be prepared to enter a celestial kingdom. (Some Latter-Day Saints feel moral lapses in obedience may be overcome in the next life.)

LDS Joseph Fielding Smith claimed this life determines a person’s destiny for the next life. LDS Joseph Fielding Smith: Those who refuse to comply with the laws and ordinances which were provided for their salvation, it would deny them the great gift and they would be assigned, after the resurrection, to some inferior sphere according to their works. This life is the most vital period in our eternal existence.

LDS Spencer Kimball: Progress toward eternal life is a matter of achieving perfection. He quoted Matthew 5:48, be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Perfection, therefore, is an achievable goal.

My comments: This doctrine of the Mormons, plus the next segment defines the reason most of the general populace of the Mormons is trying to be perfect. Within the confines of Mormon teachings, they have to keep it in high gear in order to enter into the exalted section of the celestial kingdom.

HEAVEN AND HELL

LDS Apostle James E. Talmage: From a revelation received in 1832, we learned these three kingdoms or degrees of glory are established and known as the Celestial, the Terrestrial, and the Telestial. Far below the last and least of these, is the state of eternal punishment prepared for the sons of perdition.

The Mormon’s teach that a person is destined to one of the places below after death, which are:

1. Outer Darkness: located outside of the three “kingdoms”. This place of torment is reserved for those not given mortal bodies (fallen angels) and the extremely wicked, including apostate Mormons.
2. Telestial Kingdom: The lowest level of the three heavens, where the wicked of the world will spend eternity.
3. Terrestrial Kingdom: The second level, this is where honorable people will be, including lukewarm Mormons.
4. Celestial Kingdom: This kingdom actually consists of three separate levels, with the top level being where the Mormon hopes to be exalted.

LDS President Spencer W. Kimball: After a person has been assigned to his place in the kingdom, either in the telestial, terrestrial, or celestial, or to his exaltation, he will never advance from his assigned glory to another glory. That is eternal! That is why we must make our decisions early in life and why it is imperative that such decisions be right.

Outer Darkness: Those, other than Satan and his angels, in Outer Darkness will have one more chance after the millennium. According to their offense, they will remain until they have been punished and sorry for their sins. Those who have not committed murder or apostasy against the Mormon Church will be visited by a servant of God who will unlock their cells and preach the Gospel one last time. If they refuse to repent, they remain in Outer Darkness for eternity. Those repenting will be allowed to enter the Telestial Kingdom.

Telestial Kingdom: It is referred to as hell. Many of the wicked of the world will eventually come from Outer Darkness and enter this lowest kingdom.

LDS Seventy, B.H. Roberts: But even the least of the three grand divisions, the telestial kingdom, it is said that it “surpasses all understanding”; and that even its inhabitants, the last to be redeemed, and even then deprived of the personal presence of God and the Christ, shall nevertheless receive the ministration of angels and the Holy Ghost, for they are to be counted “heirs of salvation”. How infinitely more glorious, then, must be the higher kingdoms of God and the Christ.

Terrestrial Kingdom (Encyclopedia of Mormonism): The inhabitants of this kingdom are the honorable people of the earth who received a testimony of Jesus, but were not sufficiently valiant in that testimony to obey all the principles and ordinances of the Gospel. Also, those of “the heathen nations” who died without law, who are honorable but do not accept the fullness of the gospel in the post earthly spirit world, are candidates for terrestrial glory.

Terrestrial Kingdom (Ency. of Mor. cont.): In the hereafter, they receive the presence of the son, but not the fullness of the Father. The glory of the Terrestrial differs from the Celestial as the light we see from the moon differs from that of the sun in glory. There is no mention of different degrees of levels in the Terrestrial Kingdom, but it is reasonable that there, as in the celestial and telestial kingdoms, individuals will differ from one another in glory.

LDS Spencer Kimball: Luke-warm saints get the terestrial glory. It will not be enjoyed by the very wicked. Neither will the valiant abide there.

Celestial Kingdom: It is the goal of every sincere Latter Day Saint to enter the Celestial Kingdom. A person who lives a righteous life in mortality, and who has entered into an eternal marriage may look forward to an association in the post mortal world with a worthy spouse, and with those who were earthly children, fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters. This is where God the Father dwells.

LDS Bruce McConkie: The celestial has three heavens or degrees. The highest of these is for those who gain eternal life. All others are damned in the sense their progress is limited. There are restrictions placed upon them; they have reached the end of their kingdom; they cannot have an increase.

The highest level is known as the “Church of the Firstborn”. It is here where a person can truly experience eternal life known as exaltation or godhood. There are many members of LDS who will never achieve this status.

Brigham Young: Angels will not reach exaltation. Angels are previous persons who have lived on earth, passed through the same ordeals as we, but did not magnify the Priesthood to a high degree enough to become gods. Human beings that pertain to this world, which are not capable of magnifying their calling in the Priesthood and receive crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives, will also, when they receive their bodies, become angels and will receive a glory.

Eternal Increase: Like their Heavenly Father before them, worthy Mormons are taught to hope for a celestial exaltation and the reward of godhood. Like the millions of gods who have preceded them, the Mormon couple will then commence with their eternal quest of populating their kingdoms through what is known as “eternal increase”.

LDS Apostle James Talmage: The revealed Gospel of Jesus Christ provides yet more transcendent blessings in the plan for Exaltation, whereby resurrected man may advance from one stage of relative perfection to another, with powers of eternal increase and never ending progression.

Eternal increase includes the ability to procreate throughout eternity. Just as the Mormon God continually populates his earth, so it is taught that Mormon males and their goddess wives will have the ability to populate the worlds they will inherit. Because procreation plays such a large part in the LDS concept of salvation, it is imperative that marriage relationships formed here on earth be carried on into eternity.

LDS Apostle Orson Pratt: As soon as each God has begotten millions of male and female spirits, and his heavenly inheritance becomes too small, to comfortably accommodate his great family, he, in connection with his sons, organizes a new world, after a similar order to the one which we now inhabit, where he sends both the male and female spirits to inherit tabernacles of flesh and bones.

LDS Apostle Orson Pratt: If we should take a million of worlds like this and number their particles, we should find that there are more Gods than there are particles of matter in those worlds….One world has a personal God or Father, and the inhabitants thereof worship the attributes of that God, another world has another, and they worship his attributes, and besides him there is no other.

My comments: If you read the last post and this one, then there is no doubt the general Mormon public or followers are good moral people. They need to put it in overdrive and go wide open if they hope to reach exaltation. Of course, not one iota of this effort will do them any good as far as attaining salvation in Christ.

THE BOOK OF MORMON

LDS President Joseph Smith: Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations, and where is our religion? We have none. (As shown in a previous topic, the Book of Mormon is the translation of the gold plates supposedly given to Joseph Smith by the angel Moroni. Smith supposedly translated the gold plates with the seer stones.)

In 1987, LDS President, Ezra Taft Benson urged his followers to flood the earth with the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is said to contain the story of two groups of people who came to the Americas.

The first group was the Jaredites: Smith claims they left the Tower of Babel at the confusion of tongues. Their prophet-leaders constructed eight peculiar barges and were driven by winds across the ocean to America. Supposedly, the Jaredites became a large and powerful nation. After many centuries, wickedness and wars led to a final war of annihilation of the Jaredites. During the final war, Smith claims Ether (a prophet of god) wrote their history and spiritual experiences on 24 golden plates.

The second group arrived in America 600 hundred years before the birth of Christ. Smith claimed Lehi was a Jewish prophet from Jerusalem. He supposedly fled with his wife Sariah and four sons, Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi. Also joining Lehi were Zoram, Ishmael, and Ishmael’s family. They sailed across the ocean and built cities and large civilizations in the Western Hemisphere. After Lehi’s death, some accepted Nephi as leader and some accepted Laman as leader.

The Nehphites and Lamanites hated each other and warred. The book of Mormon says Jesus appeared to these civilizations after he was resurrected from the dead in Palestine. By the fifth century AD, the Lamanites had completely annihilated the Nephites at the battle of Hill Cumorah, where the plates were allegedly found by Joseph Smith. According to Mormon belief, the descendents of the Lamanites are the American Indians. Moroni, who was the son of Mormon, was the last living Nephite. Moroni buried the golden plates at the Hill Cumorah.

LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie: Almost all doctrines of the gospel are taught in the Book of Mormon with much greater clarity and perfection than those same doctrines revealed in the Bible. Anyone who will place in parallel columns the teachings of these two great books on such subjects as atonement, plan of salvation, gathering of Israel, baptism, gifts of the Spirit, miracles, revelation, faith, charity will find conclusive proof of the superiority of the Book of Mormon teachings.

An introductory page in every copy of the Book of Mormon lists two combined testimonies made by eleven men who belonged to five families, Cowdery, Whitmer, Harris, Page, and Smith. Some of these witnesses were close friends of Joseph Smith. Eight men signed a short statement called “The Testimony of the Eight Witnesses”. Four belonged to the Whitmer family and three to Joseph Smith’s family (his father and two brothers). The eighth person was Hiram Page, who was married to a Whitmer.

Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris were three of Smith’s most trusted men who signed “The Testimony of the Three Witnesses”. Former LDS historian, D. Michael Quinn, wrote that folk magic and seer stone divination were quite popular among the Mormon witnesses.

In 1838, Oliver Cowdery was excommunicated from the Mormon Church after he accused Joseph Smith of adultery, lying, and teaching false doctrines. Cowdery later joined a Methodist Church (supposedly condemned by God). It is said; he later returned to the LDS Church in 1848 and died two years later at the age of 43.

David Whitmer believed Joseph Smith was a fallen Prophet when Whitmer wrote: Many of the LDS believe it was impossible for Brother Joseph to have fallen. I will give you some evidence upon this matter which I suppose you will certainly accept, showing that Brother Joseph belonged to the class of men who could fall into error and blindness.

David Whitmer continued: From the following you will see that Brother Joseph belonged to the weakest class, the class that was very liable to fall….All of you who believe the revelations of Joseph Smith as if they were from the mouth of God. You should have acknowledged belief in the errors of Joseph Smith, and not tried to hide them, when there is so much evidence that he did go into error and blindness.

David Whitmer continued: I am doing God’s will in bringing the truth to light concerning the errors of Brother Joseph. They will see that it is necessary, as he is the man who introduced many doctrines of error into the Church of Christ; and his errors must be made manifest and the truth brought to light, in order that all LDS shall cease to put their trust in this man, believing his doctrines as if they were from the mouth of God.

Whitmer, whom Smith called a “Dumb ***” and “mean man”, believed Joseph Smith intentionally changed the revelations that God had supposedly given him. Believing God had told him to leave the Mormon faith; Whitmer walked away and never returned.

David Whitmer: If you believe my testimony to the Book of Mormon; If you believe God spoke to us three witnesses by his own voice, then I tell you that in June, 1838, God spoke to me again by his own voice from the heavens, and told me to “separate myself from the Latter Day Saints, for as they sought to do unto me, so should it be done unto them. (Toward the end of his life, Whitmer joined an offshoot of the Mormon Church called the Church of Christ, a group that accepts the Book of Mormon.)

The third signer, Martin Harris, upset the Mormon founder when he declared that “Joseph Smith drank too much liquor when he was translating the Book of Mormon”. Harris left the Mormon movement and joined several other groups, among them the Shakers and the Strangites. While Harris eventually returned to the Mormon Church, he apparently never found peace. He told one early Mormon writer that he “never believed the Brighamite branch of the Mormon Church, nor the Josephite Church, was right, because in his opinion, God had rejected them.

John Gilbert, who ***isted E.B. Grandin in printing the Book of Mormon, asked Martin Harris, “Did you see the plates?” Martin Harris looked down for a minute, then raised his eyes and said, “No, I saw them with a spiritual eye”.

Marvin S. Hill, an instructor at BYU, wrote: There is a possibility the witnesses saw the plates in vision only. There is testimony from several independent interviewers, all non-Mormon, that Martin Harris and David Whitmer said they saw the plates with their spiritual eyes only. Z. H. Gurley asked Whitmer, “Did you touch the plates”? His answer was, “we did not touch nor handle the plates”. Stephen Burnette quotes Martin Harris that “the eight witnesses” never saw the plates.

No artifacts can be found to verify any such people as the Jaredites, Nephites, nor Lamanites. Dr. Michael Coe, a non-Mormon professor emeritus of anthropology at Yale University, is an expert in the early history of Mesoamerica. In 1973 he wrote: The bare facts of the matter are that nothing, absolutely nothing, has ever shown up in any New World excavation which would suggest to a disp***ionate observer that the Book of Mormon, as claimed by Joseph Smith, is a historical document relating to the history of the early migrants to our hemisphere.

THE TEMPLE

Unlike chapels where Mormons regularly meet to conduct worship services, LDS temples are places where worthy Mormons (known as patrons) attend to perform “sacred” works for both themselves and those who have already died, including deceased relatives. Mormons believe that God presides over the ceremonies in each of these temples scattered throughout the world. It is only by participating in the temple rituals that a faithful Latter Day Saint hopes to achieve exaltation and godhood.

Only worthy members with a “temple recommend” are allowed in the temple. The “temple recommend” is an identification card, which is renewed annually by the individual’s bishop. Qualifying criteria include full payment of tithes, regular attendance to Ward meetings, wearing temple garments under regular clothing, and an agreement to obey the Word of Wisdom.

LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith: if you would become a son or daughter of God and an heir of the kingdom, you must go to the house of the Lord and receive blessings which there can be obtained and cannot be obtained elsewhere; you must keep those commandments and those covenants to the end. [First-time Temple participants (patrons) go through and ordinance called "washing and anointing".]

A Temple worker puts a Temple garment on the patron. Sewn into this garment of the holy priesthood is a backward L over the right breast, a capital V over the left breast, and a button-hole mark over the abdomen and the knee. The patron is given a new name which can not be revealed, except at a certain time later in the ceremony. All men entering the Temple on the same day are given the same name; the same is true for women.

The husband has the ability to call his wife from the grave by her new name on resurrection day. A husband who has been through the Temple is told his wife’s new name. She is not permitted to know his name. LDS Apostle Erastus Snow: No woman will get into the celestial kingdom, except her husband receives her, if she is worthy to have a husband; and if not, somebody may receive her as a servant.

During presentation of the endowment, patrons are told to wear their garments at all times under their clothing. By wearing these Temple garments at all times, depending on their faithfulness, the patron is protected physically and spiritually against the power of the destroyer. If the garment must be removed, it must be restored as soon as possible.

Temple endowments are for consecration of the patron. They learn special handshakes, called “tokens” and secret “signs” and “words” needed in the next life. Brigham Young: These ordinances enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the sentinels (angels), being able to give key words, signs and tokens, permitting to the holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell.

The most often practiced ordinance in the Temple is vicarious baptism for the dead. LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith: The greatest responsibility is to become saviors, in our lesser degree assigned for us, for the dead without knowledge of the Gospel. Joseph Smith said, “The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us, is to seek after our dead”….Those saints who neglect this responsibility, in behalf of their deceased relatives, are in peril of their own salvation.

“Celestial marriages” of LDS couples “for time and eternity” take place in the Temple. Marriages performed outside of the temple are binding only “until death”.

Joseph Smith, May 16, 1843: Except a man and his wife enter into an everlasting covenant and be married for eternity, while in this probation, by the power and authority of the Holy Priesthood, they will cease to increase when they die; they will not have any children after the resurrection. Those married by the power and authority of the priesthood in this life, and continue without committing the sin against the Holy Ghost, will continue to increase and have children in the celestial glory.

Children born to a couple married in the Temple are automatically “sealed” for eternity to their parents. Couples not married in the Temple lose the right to be together after death, and have no claim upon their children, for they have not been born under the covenant of eternal marriage.

Much of the information for this series is from a book titled “Mormonism 101″ by Bill McKeever & Eric Johnson. This book is excellent, and a thorough reading of the book is recommended.

Father Time