runewell

I will bet that you are correct!

OK we'll strike that one. 1820? 1830? 1840? 1964? 1981? Are you quite sure? Then why use it?

Ah, but that's where you're wrong! It's not malintent.

We are all sinful and imperfect -as were Christ's disciples. Nevertheless Jesus used them to propogate his message which lives on today. For a church to practice knowingly imperfect doctrine however is problematic. If you build your house on a shaky foundation the waves will come and level it to the ground.

Fair enough. Do the LDS support marrying people that are already married?

Which version are we talking? 1820? 1830? 1840? 1920? 1964? 1981?

Yes but I'm talking the original source of the texts (Greek and Hebrew) not translations (necessary to put the Bible in the language of the reader). If you're talking about different translations of the Bible that's different.

I'm not interested in interjecting the Holy Ghost to give either person license to believe whatever they want. The Bible goes back thousands of years and original manuscripts exist which confirm its historical nature. Whether there was an apostasy or not is irrelevant. (I'm not giving the apostasy claim any merit here, I'm sure it's a debate in its own right but then how do you explain all the churches that went up between 500AD and 1800AD.) Its more reliable than the book of Mormon, which talks about things that didn't even exist in America during the time period. Besides, the LDS went through a period of apostasy in 1837 so that doesn't put them on any better footing.

Ummm why are you in such a hurry to dismiss me with a blanket statement and leave? I believe that the Holy Ghost plays a role as well, I just refrained from bringing this up because I'm concerned that people will skip truth and go straight to feelings which they perceive to be the Holy Ghost. And maybe that is the case, I don't know each individual only God does.

My point is that the Book of Mormon should never have been corrected, because according to Joseph Smith: "... we heard a voice from out of the bright light above us, saying, 'These plates have been revealed by the power of God, and they have been translated by the power of God. The translation of them which you have seen is correct, and I command you to bear record of what you now see and hear.'" (History of the Church, by Joseph Smith, Vol. 1, pp. 54-55) So if the translation is correct, why has the church changed it at all? It's reliability is completely suspect. Yes, I meant to address the Book of Abraham as well but didn't know what term to use to combine your various scriptures. Regarding the truth of the Book of Mormon: So if the book of Mormon is not true, then it is possible that you might just think you feel the power of the Holy Ghost when in fact you are experiencing something different altogether. Again, there is no proof of truth in your statements, they are simply what you claim to believe.

Most importantly, Jesus stayed put.

Actually your scripture tells you to pray and see if the words are NOT true. Not sure why I would believe a book that has been changed over 3,900 times in the last 200 years.

That is quite the contradiction. How can the true church have doctrinal problems? Even though we all will pick some church to go to, people are going to invariably come to different interpretations of scripture. So it is unrealistic to think that any one church has the answers 100% correct. It is important to get the most important things right; other things might be less important and more up for debate (my church says they hope to "major on the majors") The sources and numerous revisions to the book of Mormon and Abraham already have serious problems. So how do you know the church is true? I have heard many ex-LDS say that is that if you aren't sure about something, you are encouraged to pray about it and trust feelings - in a sense you need to convince yourself that it is right or put your concerns away on a shelf and not listen to anything to the contrary. If the church's teachings are true, why are they so afraid of opposing viewpoints?

Although I will admit there is a lot that I don't know, it doesn't necessarily follow that I am missing out on any truths about Heaven. it's going to be difficult for either side to "prove" their version is the accurate one though.

NO, from that standpoint the Book of Mormon was NOT "translated" correctly. Original Biblical text from thousands of years ago exist today. The LDS would like to say "we believe the Bible to the extent it has been translated correctly" in order to give priority to their book. But you can go back to the original text and decide for yourself what is there. For example, "Today I will be with you in paradise" (Luke 23:43). The definition of paradise isn't 100% clear. Thankfully then, they just wrote "paradise" which is identical the greek root word. LDS can claim that it means "spirit prison" but then they are reading into that word. But the original greek word looks like paradise. The original writing has not changed. Now go to the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith claimed that what he wrote down was correct. So why does the LDS church have any authority to change it? It should have been correct in the first place, and should not be undergoing constant revision. Even the first vision has multiple versions. Below are four examples of changes. http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/3913intro.htm It is one thing to understand the meaning of a word. It is another thing entirely for words and phrases to be inserted and changed. Your scriptures are unreliable. The changes made in the Book of Mormon and in Joseph Smith's revelations have apparently caused the Mormon Church leaders some concern, for they fear that their people will find out about them. A few years ago the Mormon leaders allowed one of their members, Wilford Wood, to reproduce (by the photo-offset method) the first edition of the Book of Mormon (under the title of Joseph Smith Begins His Work, Vol. 1) and the Book of Commandments and first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants (under the title of Joseph Smith Begins His Work, Vol. 2). The Deseret Press, which is owned by the Mormon Church, did the printing, and the Deseret Book Store, which is also owned by the church, sold them. Since Mr. Wood's reprints did not tell that the revelations and the Book of Mormon had been changed, the church leaders evidently felt that they were safe as long as members of the church did not compare them with present editions. It appears, however, that members of the church did compare the books and found that many changes had been made. On October 9, 1964, a man reported to us that the Deseret Book Store had refused to sell him copies of Joseph Smith Begins His Work, Volumes 1 and 2. On October 10, 1964, Sandra Tanner went to the Deseret Book Store and asked the clerk concerning these books. The clerk, supposing she was a Mormon, said, "President David O. McKay won't let us sell that anymore." The clerk went on to say, "We've had several people leave the Church because of those books. The priests and ministers of the other churches are using these books to confuse people. Because of the confusion we can't sell them any more. President McKay has taken them out of circulation." What kind of religion prevents their followers from seeing the original text?!?