J-Pip

Erik your story was great, I too left mormonism and attend a bible teaching non-denominational chruch. I love listening to Pastor Mark Driscoll, he's so enthusiastic about the gospel. I'm planning a motorcycle trip up the pacific coast just to visit some churches up that way. You ought to check out Britt Merrick at Reality Carpenteria also. When I get some more time I ought to read all 11 pages of this. I think you might be the EJ that I've been accused of being, after reading your story I guess I'd be proud for someone to confuse me with you. God Bless Brother. Let Mark and Mars Hill know that they're reaching out to more than just Seattle. It's amazing how God has been working here in Utah, in the six or so months that i've been attending, our church opened a separate campus, and is now adding another service to accommodate the growth.

Hugh Nibley made that a staple in the LDS church, I used it myself a couple of times

Sorry to disappoint, I'm new here. I'd love to sit and talk with if I need to prove myself to you. Have a Mod check my IP address against whoever you think I am. I don't see where I've thrown stones, I didn't insult anybody, I'm sure my opinions and comments have offended some of your beliefs, but this is an open forum. And since I have a lot of interest in the LDS church I came here to discuss it. I asked a question, got an answer and joined in the discussion that followed.

I didn't mean to offend, and I don't see any personal attacks in what I said. I too am passionate about what I believe, believe it or not I was as a Mormon also. "Loving each other and getting along" is closing our eyes on the truth that we should be reaching out to help God save us.

God is in control of my salvation, even my faith in him is because of his grace.We could discuss religion till the cows came home, i'd rather discuss truth. The truth is: one of us has to be wrong, we're both pretty convinced that we're right. You're religion wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't sending missionaries out to tell others they're wrong. So lets get past the pleasantries of Mormonism not working out for me. If you really believe that's OK you're not being truthful or are being ignorant about it. Mormonism teaches that it is the only way to God. I believe that Christ is the only way to God. So yeah, being truthful, it's not OK with me that you believe in Mormonism, I couldn't say that I loved my fellow man if I didn't try to reach out to those I felt were in need of truth. I pray that God will open your eyes and give you truth as he did me and many others.

I don't belong to a religion, call me Christian if you want. I was Mormon till this past year, Jesus found me and he changed my life.

According to a passage in Josephus's Jewish Antiquities, (xx.9) "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" met his death after the death of the procurator Porcius Festus, yet before Lucceius Albinus took office (Antiquities 20,9) — which has thus been dated to 62. The High Priest Ananus ben Ananus took advantage of this lack of imperial oversight to assemble a Sanhedrin who condemned James "on the charge of breaking the law," then had him executed by stoning. Josephus reports that Ananus' act was widely viewed as little more than judicial murder, and offended a number of "those who were considered the most fair-minded people in the City, and strict in their observance of the Law," who went as far as meeting Albinus as he entered the province to petition him about the matter. In response, King Agrippa replaced Ananus with Jesus, the son of Damneus. Had Joseph been tried and found guilty of some false crimes, I'd of called it Judicial murder too, but he was just plain Murdered. Heggesepius gives the rest of the story. Or another version.... “ They came, therefore, in a body to James, and said: "We entreat thee, restrain the people: for they are gone astray in their opinions about Jesus, as if he were the Christ. We entreat thee to persuade all who have come hither for the day of the passover, concerning Jesus. For we all listen to thy persuasion; since we, as well as all the people, bear thee testimony that thou art just, and showest partiality to none. Do thou, therefore, persuade the people not to entertain erroneous opinions concerning Jesus: for all the people, and we also, listen to thy persuasion. Take thy stand, then, upon the summit of the temple, that from that elevated spot thou mayest be clearly seen, and thy words may be plainly audible to all the people. For, in order to attend the passover, all the tribes have congregated hither, and some of the Gentiles also.[12] To the scribes' and Pharisees' dismay, James boldly testified that Christ "Himself sitteth in heaven, at the right hand of the Great Power, and shall come on the clouds of heaven." The scribes and pharisees then said to themselves, "We have not done well in procuring this testimony to Jesus. But let us go up and throw him down, that they may be afraid, and not believe him." ” Accordingly, the scribes and Pharisees “ …threw down the just man… [and] began to stone him: for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned, and kneeled down, and said: "I beseech Thee, Lord God our Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." And, while they were thus stoning him to death, one of the priests, the sons of Rechab, the son of Rechabim, to whom testimony is borne by Jeremiah the prophet, began to cry aloud, saying: "Cease, what do ye? The just man is praying for us." But one among them, one of the fullers, took the staff with which he was accustomed to wring out the garments he dyed, and hurled it at the head of the just man. And so he suffered martyrdom; and they buried him on the spot, and the pillar erected to his memory still remains, close by the temple. This man was a true witness to both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ.

Apparently we have a difference of opinion of what willingly means. I guess after he put up a fight he "willingly" jumped out the window. I don't believe he was a martyr by the definition you gave.

There ya go, I thought it was Grant, but wasn't sure, I hadn't read about Brigham proposing it as a commandment though. Funny that they would take a vote to accept the Word of God though.

Again it was John Taylor who was present that stated two had died from their wounds. An account given from the other side (the mob) stated that the pistol fired three times and misfired three times but the three shots struck. And if they died as a result of infection from his shots, it's the same thing.....

Jolee65; If it were truly God's work, he'd of found someone else, had Joseph said no. But since He is God, He knew Joseph wouldn't right? (assuming that it IS God's work) SO Joseph was only a tool in the hands of God like any of the other prophets. (Assuming that it is God's work) The Work Christ did, no one else could have done. The opinion many LDS have of him seems to be the same he had of himself: "Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet...When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go." (History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408, 409) Just-a-guy: I understand your point, Joseph was unjustly murdered by a mob. But still, what were Christ's teachings? Love your enemies, turn the other cheek.... yes most of the ealy Christians martyrs were tried and put to death by a government. But not all, James Jesus' brother was killed by a mob, thrown off the temple, but that didn't kill him. The mob then was about to stone him when he began to pray for his attackers. Here is the difference and lack of love by Joseph Smith. James prayed for his attackers, not that they'd die, not that he'd be rescued, but for their forgiveness. The love he showed for them impressed them enough that they stopped stoning him, but a man hit him in the head with a stick. Regardless of what the situation was, Joseph did not portray any Christlike attributes at the time of his death. Pale Rider: (He must've agreed with me on this point, because he later deleted his comment about Moses killing an Egyptian....) Moses? Really? well, I guess lucky for Moses he did that before Christ and the Law, and since it was Moses, i'm sure he knows who to give thanks to for the forgiveness of his sins. I'll get back to you on the "hundreds" that were killed. If you have any resources for me to look into, i'd gladly appreciate them. But Hauns Mill, what I always knew to be the worst attack was 19 killed. But there's a story behind the attack. I don't mean to belittle the people who were killed, so please don't take it that way. But there's much more to the story than that Joseph died as a martyr as his hymn claims and that the early saints were persecuted for no reason. Look at both sides of the story and try to find out why it happened.

I agree, I find no fault in him for fighting back, he was well within his rights to do so as far as the law is concerned. But he chose another path than Christ's followers. I believe it was Talmage in Articles of Faith who pointed out that some of the early "martyrs" were so obsessed with this wish that they deliberately made themselves as obnoxious as possible, hoping that someone would get sufficiently angry to kill them. I havn't read that book in a long time, but I'm sure there were some that professed to be Christians and did just that. There were some crazy Christians back then, thankfully too, we got Paul's letters because of them.

I'm pretty sure Brigham Young wasn't the Pres. when the WOW was "upgraded" to a commandment, I recall reading him saying something to the effect of: The bretheren want me to make the WOW a commandment and I won't. I believe it may have been Woodruff.

Regardless what one thinks of the man, he's just that a man, a sinful creature like you and I that needs Chirst's atonement just as much as you and I. Be careful when you compare Jesus to a man, IMO it should only be done to show how perfect he is compared to the rest of us. Do you think Jesus approved of Joseph's actions at the Jail? I'm not calling him a murderer, I think he killed in self defense, but what were Jesus' teachings? Turn the other cheek? None of Jesus' apostles fought back when their time came. Peter willingly returned after having been freed by some of the believers, to be hung on a cross upside down. Paul willingly allowed himself to be killed, James didn't try to fight his way off the roof top or try to drag anybody down with him when he was thrown off the temple in Jerusalem. But Joseph shot 3-4 people killing 2..... One of these things is not like the others.... Read Foxes book of Martyrs or Jesus Freaks Martyrs, they're full of stories of people who believed and followed Jesus. They didn't fear death, they saw it as a way home, they were honored to die for Christ because they knew death could not hold them and they had greater things waiting for them.

I believe it was Ezra Taft Benson who said that (paraphrased a bit from memory don't quote me exactly) Anything a prophet says is the will or word of God and that a prophet or president doesn't have to say "thus saith the Lord" for it to be scripture. I would take that to mean that when Gordon B. Hinckley says "we don't consume caffeine" as LDS believers don't drink caffeinated drinks.

I would agree with you on the fact that the Word of Wisdom is too important in LDS culture. But I disagree that aside from denying the Holy Ghost, that God has a heirarchy of sin. Sin is sin, wether you told a little white lie or Killed a thousand people, without Jesus' sacrifice for you, you stand guilty of sin before God. A friend of mine came up with this analogy, if you were over at my house for a BBQ, and my dog pooped on the lawn while I was serving you up some lemonade. Say I wanted to get rid of the turd on the lawn and walked over and picked it up while holding your glass of lemonade. Say a peice of the poop falls into your glass of lemonade and I served it to you.... Would you drink it? Lets change the senario just a little bit. Say I'm stirring your leminade with a spoon and when my dog poops on the lawn I use the same spoon to pick up and dispose of the poop. I then use a towel and wipe the spoon and stir it in your glass and serve you the lemonade, Would you drink that? I don't think there's any Heirarchy to sin. Now back to the topic about the Word of Wisdom. What about meat? I always thought it was pretty clear that we shouldn't eat meat only in times of famine or winter months. It's hard to argue famine, or needing to eat meat in the winter when our grains come from the other side of the world.

I believe the word rapture comes from the latin raptus, meaning carried away. I would argue that Noah and his family were spared from the wrath of God. So was Lot and his family at the time of Sodom and Gomorah. An interesting thing about the word rapture, it's used mostly to describe an extremely joyful delight which would be a good way to express how we will feel at the time we first meet our Savior.

I guess i'd have to call beer a mild drink compared to whiskey or any of the "hard" alcohols. Like Salsa, I don't like the hot stuff, but the mild still has a little heat to it. I'm a beer aficiando too.

That'd be interesting to see what the decent evidence was. I've read about the mob and also a lack of investigation, but not that.

that did thanks.

Sorry, I didn't realize that was your answer. I guess I was looking for a charge like Pam posted up. Thanks.

Actually, I don't know yet. I didn't look at the link Pam gave me, like I said, from the horses mouth, I could read on the internet for the rest of my life about the Mormon Church and probably never cover it all. I came here so I could ask people and get an answer from a real person.

I'm not Mormon, but i'd like to read more about this, where can I find this revelation?

I knew he was murdered at Carthage, jail, but didn't know why he was put in jail. I just wanted to get it "straight from the horses mouth" so to speak.

Joseph Smith was killed in jail right? Why was he put in jail?