ryanmercer

And what about THIS 'war crime' Mountain Meadows massacre The Mountain Meadows massacre was a mass slaughter of the Fancher-Baker emigrant wagon train at Mountain Meadows, Utah Territory, by the local Mormon militia on 11 September 1857. It began as an attack, quickly turned into a siege, and eventually culminated in the execution of the unarmed emigrants after their surrender. All of the party except for seventeen children under eight years old—about 120 men, women, and children—were killed. After the massacre, the corpses of the victims were left decomposing for two years on the open plain, their children were distributed to local Mormon families, and many of their possessions auctioned off at the Latter Day Saint Cedar City tithing office.

All I'm going to say is... they were enemy combatants... they were killed... that is war, that is not crime. If they were non-coms maybe it would have been wrong... but all of these people that want to say what is just, what is fair, what is legal in war... HELLLLLOOOOOO it is WAR. It's ok to kill people one way, but not another? Sure, if all the bodies found were say 5 years old... ok sure then it would have been a 'crime' against morals not a 'war crime'. In this case... they were able-bodied known enemy combatants. They were executed. "Can you imagine if a few thousand American Soldiers had surrendered in Afghanistan and were treated like this?" It is WAR... ok, here... we can arm our soldiers with flowers bouquets, and they can approach armed enemy combatants offering flowers... and they'll get cut down with a wall of bullets. It isn't a playground tiff, it is WAR. The enemy WOULD kill, or torture, or torture and kill anyone of us that surrendered... now, do you want a bunch of these guys to surrender to us, then we ship them off to prison camps or prisons... so that they can sit there for weeks, months, years missing their families hating us more and more every day, so that if they ever are let go they can go preach hatred for the Americas to anyone that will listen creating a mass ove anti-Americans that would stop at nothing to ensure your death? War is violent. People die in war. Fighters in that region aren't forces to underestimate. They have been repelling armies from their lands for a thousand years. During 9 crusades in the area against mostly Muslim forces... there were very few instances in where they were nice to invading forces that lost to them. Even Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known for a few instances of battlefield compassion (one instance he was attacking a fortress and learned that a couple had married... he ordered the tower they were in not be attacked, basically leveled the rest of the fortress, then gave them wedding gifts from his own treasury.) would be ruthless to enemy soldiers that were overrun or surrendered. "Thousands of soldiers buried in a mass grave, massacred after surrendering". Next time they catch a mess of enemy combatants, we'll send them over to your house for you to keep an eye on. Just my two cents.

Blah not the Spear of Longinus... and you know if you follow some rumors... the U.S. Captured it from the Nazi base in the Arctic after WWII and a replica was given to back to the Kunsthistorisches Museum... and now that replica sits in the Schatzkammer... so perhaps it's at Area 51, or at the Smithsonian in storage. Of course the Vatican supposedly has one, and of course there is the Echmiadzin one too... although some think the Echmiadzin is the one that Vatican has.

I agree here... the problem with the Bible is that the books in it were all written a few to MANY generations after the events took place. Even the New Testament books date to 100+ years after the events took place. That means these texts were passed on orally, and as we've seen in archaeology that they were also passed on in the form of writing once they did make it to 'paper' however even then there are often considerable differences in various copies of the books due to copying errors, and/or intentional changes. Then of course those texts have been translated at LEAST once before you read them... and concepts and words don't always directly translate from one language to another. A good historical example of this is the Qur'an... translations of it are NOT accepted by Muslims as being the Qur'an, they are seen as a commentary because many of the concepts don't translate out of Classical/Qur'anic Arabic... there are simply no good ways to translate some of the concepts to other languages... the same is true for the books of the bible. The same can be said for things in the same LANGUAGE. If you take English from around say 1066 around the time of the Norman Invasion and give a piece in it to someone to read now... they will not understand the bulk of it, and even when translated by an expert on early-Old English some meaning will likely be lost and/or concepts slightly changed. However, in this case I imagine it's the fact that the book was passed down orally for how ever many generations before making it's way to a written text, and confusion would likely have resulted... just play the game 'telephone' with 10 people... now try that over 100+ years.

I agree 110%

I say... worry about THIS life, not the next one... do what you need to in THIS life to live according to God's will, that is all that should matter. Even if polygamy is 110% guaranteed after this life... you shouldn't worry about it. If that is God's will for that life, so be it, just worry about living this one right so you are ensured of GETTING to that life!

I don't see what the issue is anyway. A name is a name, if the child doesn't like it they can choose something else later in life, you could even call them by something else now it is not uncommon to go by a name that isn't your given name... that is why most applications (for jobs, schools, even on some credit apps) it asks if you go by another name that isn't your legal name. What's in a name? that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet

Pffft!

Oh trust me, I've gone back as far as possible. I've spent years working on it... the biggest issue on the paternal side is... a lot of records were destroyed in arson when people wanted the courthouse moved tot he county seat but couldn't get it done without burning the building down, with everything inside. The maternal side, there have been people on that side (dozens, if not hundreds) and they just can't go back any farther due to the horribly common name of the farthest back they've got.

Stalker! hahahaha.

I wish I could get us back that early on either side.

Awesome. I'm in Speedway :)

I do something fun... although it doesn't often work, and I am just about always down, at home at least . Just find something that amuses you or makes you happy and do it! :)

Well... you know... an intelligence agency can't work effectively if it announces everything it does... Undercover police officers don't go around saying "I'm a cop, I'm investigating you, I'm trying to gather information on you and the other people, please tell me everything, I'm a cop, I'm undercover, I'm pretending to be someone else" An intelligence agency that regularly does CLANDESTINE work... has even more reason not to share MANY things about it's operations.

Hi Sarah!

Not much there right now. 4 videos. A condensed version of my conversion story, and a few other things. I'm trying to get people to let me tape their testimonies... but no one really wants to and I'm not good at planning things to talk about. If anyone ever wants to suggest anything for me to talk about, and perhaps even go as far as to give me a good deal of material for a brief talk, I'll gladly do it and would appreciate it.

I wasn't asking how far it is possible to go back... I was asking how far can YOU go back :)

A poster above said marital stress can cause nightmares. But even simpler, ANY stress can cause nightmares. I hope you two work everything out... I'm in a similar situation (although it's my mother, not my spouse).

I've made it back to the mid 1800's on my Paternal side... and that's probably as far as I'll ever get there. A big chunk of my maternal side was done by my grandmother's maternal side and that gets me back to the late 1700's.

That article inspired me to do YouTube - Are Mormons Christian... a few months ago. :) I encourage everyone else that makes youtube videos to go do a similar one :) get us more positive video out there (not only that, never know when someone stumbling upon a pro-lds video might lead to an investigation and maybe even a conversion!)

Haha at leas you meet people. Women run from me, unless they need a shoulder to cry on or someone to vent to... as soon as that's done I'm back to being invisible, ha!

This guy is awesome -> Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon He is a real-life friend of mine that hands out a TON of church material. Best part is he is very modest about it. He posts most of his encounters on giving out church material on his blog there. He also offers advice on how to hand out church material to strangers and is just an absolute insipration. From his blog -> " Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon (One drop at a time.) My journal entries about giving away copies of the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and other LDS church books, mainly to immigrants in their native language, mainly in Indianapolis, Indiana. With 106 translations, the Book of Mormon (along with the Bible) is a good "Rosetta Stone" for learning English or other languages, in addition to being a missionary tool. My goals in keeping this blog/journal are: to encourage others to give out copies of the Book of Mormon and the Bible, to illustrate the incredible number of recent immigrants who are eager for bilingual material, to illustrate the ease of encountering them and offering them material, and to make known the wonderful deeds of the Lord (Ps 105:1) in arranging many of these encounters. I realize that the concept of giving out foreign language books to strangers is just plain weird to many people, so here are some hints if you are intrigued by this and wish to try it. Respectful comments and constructive criticism are invited. The goal of the book placement effort is to provide, in a friendly non-threatening way, gospel material to someone who is willing to receive it in their native language and English. To the recipients of these books who read this: I thank you again for allowing me to be of service to you. I encourage you to read the material, and pray to God that He confirm the truth of it to you. The Bible and the Book of Mormon are both the Word of God. To live according to their teachings will bring you happiness. "

Thank you! :)

My friend Norm recently started a new choir. They don't sing much - in fact, they mostly just sit around drinking diet pop and eating fruit. It's called the Norman Tab and Apple Choir.

Hey all, I've got my LDS related videos up on youtube at YouTube - MormonMercer's Channel :)