evidence that joseph smith knew about engraved plates during his time--apologists panic =)

Mike Reed Drops Bomb on Metal Plates

"Mormons practice polygamy". myth? technically, no.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-mormonism/2011/08/03/gIQAyIhTwI_story.html
this is technically not a myth. ask mormons if they believe in eternal plural marriage? i.e. can a mormon man today be eternally married to more than one woman? (answer: yes. if a man's wife dies, he may be married for "time and all eternity" to a new woman, *in addition to his dead wife*). "eternal" polygamy is still practiced. joseph smith is btw sealed/married to more than 200 women. one of them women is 169 years older than him and another was born 15 years after he died! (source 1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickleus/4960128084/ ) (source 2: new.familysearch.org)

joseph smith boasting he is greater than jesus

history of the church, page 2432

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.

thelema's the equinox volume 1 number 2 book review

this is my review of equinox 1.2

page 4

joseph smith is mentioned in a list of incompatible forms of faith =)

Faith has been proposed as a remedy. But we perceive many incompatible forms of Faith founded on Authority—The Vedas, The Quran, The Bible; Buddha, Christ, Joseph Smith

this appeals to me:

5. There is only one Rock which Scepticism cannot shake;
the Rock of Experience.
6. We have therefore endeavoured to eliminate from the
conditions of acquiring Spiritual Experience its dogmatic,
theological, accidental, climatic and other inessential elements.
7. We require the employment of a strictly scientific
method. The mind of the seeker must be unbiased: all
prejudice and other sources of error must be perceived as such
and extirpated.
8. We have therefore devised a Syncretic-Eclectic Method
combining the essentials of all methods, rejecting all their
trammels, to attack the Problem, through exact experiments
and not by guesses.

page 5

1. There is no hope in physical life, since death of the
individual, the race, and ultimately the planet, ends all.
2. There is no hope in reason, since it contradicts itself,
and is in any case no more than a reflection upon the facts of
physical life.
...
4. There is no hope in Faith, for there are many warring
Faiths, all equally positive.

2. We are Men of Science, ever eagerly acquiring
pertinent facts.
3. We are Sceptics, ever eagerly examining those facts.
4. We are Philosophers, ever eagerly classifying and coordinating those well-criticised facts.
5. We are Epicureans, ever eagerly enjoying the
unification of those facts.
6. We are Philanthropists, ever eagerly transmitting our
knowledge of those facts to others.
7. Further, we are Syncretists, taking truth from all
systems, ancient and modern; and Eclectics, ruthlessly
discarding the inessential factors in any one system, however
perfect.

page 6

3. Mysticism, being based on pure experience, is always a
vital force; but owing to the lack of trained observation, has
always been a mass of error. Spiritual Experience, interpreted
in the terms of Intellect, is distorted; just as sunrise shows the
grass green and the sea blue. Both were invisible until sunrise;
yet the diversity of colour is not in the sun, but in the objects
on which its light falls, and their contradiction does not prove
the sun to be an illusion.
4. We shall correct Mysticism (or Illuminism) by Science,
and explain Science by Illuminism.

1. We have one method, that of Science.

page 13

2. In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths;
of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and
many other things that may or may not exist.
It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing
certain things, certain results will follow; students are
earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophical validity to any of them.
3. The advantages to be gained from them are chiefly
these:
(a) A widening of the horizon of the mind.
(b) An improvement of the control of the mind.

the rest of the story FAIR deliberately left out about joseph smith's moon men beliefs

oliver b. huntington's testimony about joseph smith's teachings about men on the moon:

As far back as 1837, I know that he [Joseph Smith] said the moon was inhabited by men and women the same as this earth, and that they lived to a greater age than we do -- that they live generally to near the age of a 1,000 years.
He described the men as averaging nearly six feet in height, and dressing quite uniformly in something near the Quaker style

FAIR'S main response (in addition to the "speaking as a man" copout):

However, it should be remembered that this concept was considered 'scientific fact' by many at the time.

but FAIR intentionally leaves out a rather key part of that testimony:

"Astronomers and philosophers have, from time almost immemorial until very recently, asserted that the moon was uninhabited, that it had no atmosphere, etc. But recent discoveries, through the means of powerful telescopes, have given scientists a doubt or two upon the old theory.
Nearly all the great discoveries of man in the last half century have, in one way or another, either directly or indirectly, contributed to prove Joseph Smith to be a Prophet."

FAIR is just doing what dallin oaks describes as the mission of official church literature--misrepresentation (lying):

Balance is telling both sides. This is not the mission of the official Church literature

see also Early Mormon Leaders on the Inhabitants of the Sun and Moon

book of abraham couldnt possibly come from the papyri joseph smith said he translated it from

this is taken from "The Book of Abraham" by Robert M. Bowman Jr., Director of Research, Institute for Religious Research (irr.org march 2011 e-newsletter)

The surviving pieces from the Hor papyrus total about three feet long. According to University of Chicago Egyptology professors Klaus Baer and Robert Ritner, the original papyrus was probably about five feet long (so that roughly two feet are missing). LDS scholars such as John Gee often suggest that the text for the Book of Abraham was on the missing papyrus. Gee’s original suggestion was that the papyrus was about ten feet long, a claim that Ritner (Gee’s former professor) said has “no justification.” In 2008, Gee went further and argued that a complex mathematical formula based on the winding of the papyrus shows that over forty feet of papyrus are missing from the original roll. In 2010 Andrew Cook and Christopher Smith applied the same method in a more sophisticated analysis and concluded that about two feet of papyrus are missing, agreeing with Baer and Ritner’s estimates. Cook and Smith also estimated that the existing text of the Book of Abraham, if written in the same Egyptian script on the same roll, would take up about 17 feet. Given these estimates, it is simply not possible for the text Joseph Smith claimed was the Book of Abraham to have fit on the Hor papyrus. In fact, even Gee’s supposed missing forty feet would not be enough, since as Gee himself admits, the present Book of Abraham represents only a small fraction of the total writings of Abraham that Joseph Smith claimed were on the roll.

book of mormon contradiction: god was and is eternal and unchangeable

my good friend lisa pointed this out to me:

(Moroni 8:18)For I know that God is not a partial god, neither a changable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity......(Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.345) We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea...he was once a man like us.

Jon replies:

It's not just the Book of Mormon that gets contradicted.
Mormonism is just one big contradictory hypocritical pantomime:
Polygamy is okay - oh no it isn't...
Blacks can't have the Priesthood - oh yes they can...
Adam is God - oh no he isn't...
God was once a man - oh no he wasn't - errr I mean oh yes he was...
Give generously to the poor - even if the Church doesn't...
Stay out of debt - but pay tithing before any bills...
Listen to the Prophet - oh no don't listen to those old Prophets...
Women can't pray in sacrament meeting - oh yes they can...
Gays can't be married - *watch this space*

enochian magick pele ring and temple garments connection

i have independently found elements in the temple ceremony in some of my old occult books (that joseph smith reportedly had in his day), e.g. the pele ring (from the year 1583):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickleus/4189028450/

look at that square symbol (from enochian magick) and you will see all the marks on the temple garment: the L, V, and the horizontal line, on top of an O, which represents the navel =)

and then there's the word PELE. sound familiar?
"pay-lay-ale"
=)

i haven't read all of d michael quinn's book early mormonism and the magic world view, so i'm not sure if he has noticed this.

source: my post on exmormon.org

margaret singer - on cults

cults: dr. margaret singer speaks at a conference
11:56 cultic relationships are those relationships in which a person intentionally induces others to become totally or nearly totally dependent on him or her for almost all major life decisions and inculcates in these followers a belief that he or she has some special talent, gift or knowledge.

boy that sure fits joseph smith and the mormon church to the T!


13:15 the term cult refers to the political and power structure

13:28 our first amendment absolutely protects freedom of belief. our first amendment does not say that, in the pursuit of that, you can go do any old conduct. the law that applies to each of us applies to cult leaders and cult followers as far as conduct goes.

14:16 cult leaders are self-appointed persons who claim to have a special mission or special knowledge in life

14:36 cult leaders tend to be charismatic. if you aren't a little bit charismatic, it's awfully hard to get a following... it helps to be determined and it helps to be domineering...and [have] a low conscience level.

15:58 cults in the modern day sense basically have two purposes: recruiting new members and fundraising

17:04 cults are elitist organizations. all of the cults that i've studied of the modern day ones have the attitude that once you join you're one of the elite.

19:30 cults are authoritarian in their power structure, they tend to be totalitarian and totalistic in the control of the behavior of their members.

20:38 their way is the only way

22:15 most of us in psychology and psychiatry are not interested very much at all in the content of the belief systems. what we're interested in is the packaging of the influence techniques, in what we're coming to call "coordinated programs of coercive influence and behavior control"

29:51 6 conditions, if you have them present, you have a good chance of being able to conduct a thought reform program.

the first thing you need to do is get control of the person's time. you don't have to have them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but try to get control over their time.

two, create a sense of powerlessness in them, so that when they're at your group, they hear people talking in certain ways and they don't know what the words mean, but most of the people present seem to. so that the new persons into the group want to become like the rest of the group. those of us that are social creatures really want to have group connections. we want to get some warmth and acceptance from other human beings. so if you're at a meeting like this you hear new terms and you ask what they are because you want to be able to go home and read and understand more and follow what's going on.

so if you're going to do the standard conditions, first, get control over the person's time. two, create a sense of powerlessness in the person. then by manipulating, rewards, punishments and experiences, you start inhibiting and suppressing the old social behavior that the person brought with them and you start by eliciting the new behavior that you want the people to show. you have to do it in a closed system of logic where there are no complaints from the underlings; it's all from the top down; and the final critical thing is: people must be unaware that they're being moved through a program whose goal it is to make them deployable agents of management. that means in the end you'll buy courses, you'll sign up for the duration with the cult leader. you don't know it at the beginning. there has to be this special uninformed state.

people are always saying to me "well, isn't that how it is when you go off to be a jesuit? isn't that how it is when you go off to join the marine corp?" and the answer is "no". you know when you go to the marine corp, you may not know how muddy it's going to be and exactly what drill seargents are going to be like. and when you join the jesuits you don't know how hard it may be in the end to wrestle with your own human conscience and your own human mind, but you know ahead of time and they have a long period and i swear, somebody should make me an honorary jesuit or an honorary marine corp person because every time i testify in court i have to defend these organizations as not being mind controlling and thought reform organizations and i have a great long list of how they differ and especially i have to have a great long list for the marine corp because there are always a bunch of people present that have not been in the military and think that it's a horrible place that brainwashes people. no, it's an indoctrination program for the military and you know what it is when you're going. the recruiting officer doesn't have on a dress and pretend he's a sister of mercy. you know what you're joining and that it's rough

1) the lds church sure has control of their members' time:
meetings during the week
meetings on sunday
home teaching/visiting teaching
cleaning the church
going to the temple
morning/afternoon seminary
events, activities
service projects
missionary work, members on splits with missionaries
open houses
devotionals, firesides (evenings in someone's home or at the church where a guest speaker speaks about a particular topic)
ward, stake and general conferences
leadership training meetings
scripture reading every day
family home evening
various callings like working in the geneological center or serving at the temple as a veil worker or patron/helper
missions

2) the lds church has so many new vocabulary words and concepts that non/new-members have never heard before--their own religious language really

3) the church totally suppresses old social behavior and is VERY conformist! there are dress codes, ways of speaking and ways NOT to speak

43:03 the discrepency between the followers' standard of living and that of the cult leader. remember these programs change an individual a step at a time. and the leaders have ways of rationalizing and usually the way they rationalize that they live in such style and glory is because they've gotten the followers to believe that the outside world and their parents and their old life is a corrupt and venal and evil group. they say that the leader has to deal with these bad and evil people in the outside world who only respect money and jewels and silk clothing, so that at a step at a time people have become made dependent on the leader, they come to accept a step at a time his or her philosophy and then a step at a time they come to literally push their old conscience--and because they're so dependent upon the organization, that they're taught that negativity is wrong. you can't run a cult and let people complain to management, it's just very difficult... the cult leader, in order to deal with these outside people has to look like a successful and powerful person.

the church leaders in their nice suits, throwing huge banquets for other leaders on the outside, inviting them to their huge, spacious, expensive buildings. their church office building offices and bathrooms are decked out with expensive woods and marble, etc.

46:09 i've interviewed a large number of people who have left some of the major cults as well as small cults. some of them were totally aware that it was a corrupt leader. they knew he was having sexual hanky panky with the teenage children of the followers, they knew a lot of the underside and the shady side of the cult leader, but at that point, usually they were so dependent that they stayed even though they knew it. some of them, when they discovered it and their old conscience flashed back to the center of their thinking, they left.... the people at the top are really a mixed bag.... it's like any great big business enterprise: some are going to know and some aren't.

the reason that those in the lds church don't quit: they're too dependent, they're locked in, their social/family life would be deeply affected

53:16 those are called a hook. those of you who are in sales know you have to have a hook to get a person to look at the merchandise. sometimes the hook is taking yoga lessons, sometimes it's a free meditation lesson, sometimes a free massage lesson, health food lectures, any kind of an introductory thing and then the group tries to recruit out of those who do show an interest.

like the lds church missionaries offering english classes or playing sports (teaching american sports, etc) or doing service or young adult programs where they ask the youth to bring a friend.

wentworth letter, written by joseph smith, claiming native american indians are lamanites

the wentworth letter (1842):

In this important and interesting book the history of ancient America is unfolded, from its first settlement by a colony that came from the Tower of Babel at the confusion of languages to the beginning of the fifth century of the Christian era. We are informed by these records that America in ancient times has been inhabited by two distinct races of people. The first were called Jaredites and came directly from the Tower of Babel. The second race came directly from the city of Jerusalem about six hundred years before Christ. They were principally Israelites of the descendants of Joseph. The Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the Israelites came from Jerusalem, who succeeded them in the inheritance of the country. The principal nation of the second race fell in battle towards the close of the fourth century. The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country.

see also the other posts about lds claims that native americans descend from israel/jews

History of the Church (HC) Volumes 1 - 7 (original 1902 edition), PDF

the history of the church (of jesus christ of latter-day saints) is now available in its entirety in pdf: http://www.archive.org/details/HistoryOfTheChurchhcVolumes1-7original1902EditionPdf

tell your friends about it =)
you can also buy the actual books on amazon:

joseph smith jr - married (sealed) to women not even alive in his lifetime

according to new.familysearch.org joseph smith jr was sealed/married to several women that were not alive during his lifetime. here are the 2 most extreme examples i found:
* Ane Margretha Nielsen, born 5 February 1859 in Onslev, Falster, Denmark. she was born 15 years AFTER he died.
* Dorothy Cotton, born about 1649 in Of, Hampton, Rockingham, New Hampshire, USA. she was born 195 years before joseph!
(i have screenshots of these records, i have seen them with my own eyes.)

these are just 2 of his 239+ wives (helen radkey's research) that have been sealed to him in an lds temple.

see also the helen radkey interview: http://www.whatloveisthis.tv/ep333.htm

oh yeah, and emma smith is sealed to 3 different men:
Lewis C Bidamon
Joseph Smith
Don Carlos Smith

you can check it here:
https://new.familysearch.org/en/action/hourglassiconicview?bookid=p.KWJY-BP8&focus=p.KWJY-BP8&svfs=1

lds changes sacred temple ordinances. lds "apostle" david haight says this is apostasy

in the ensign, november 1979, david haight (interesting sidenote: notice how he is referred to in the article as a member of the council of the twelve, and not apostle) states in his talk called joseph smith the prophet:

we explained briefly the Apostasy and the Restoration: that there is vast evidence and history of an apostasy from the doctrine taught by Jesus and his Apostles, that the organization of the original Church became corrupted, and sacred ordinances were changed to suit the convenience of men, and that today good people all over the world are confused with contending religions with differing doctrine and methods of worship.

11 years later the church would change the sacred temple ordinances by removing the signs of the cutting of the throat and belly (bowels). then in 2005, they have apparently changed (almost done away with) the washing and anointing. see mormon church changes the temple ceremony again?

see also mormon temple endowment ceremony ordinances - Can sacred mormon temple covenants and ordinances be changed?

brigham young: joseph smith never broke any laws...oh wait, yes he did

brigham young states in his journal of discourses:

Vol. 10, p.111
Joseph Smith, in forty-seven prosecutions was never proven guilty of
one violation of the laws of his country.

first off, if joseph smith was so innocent, why would brigham young use the deceptive words "was never proven guilty" instead of simply stating:
never violated any law of his country
?
oh wait....except for the time when he admitted to deception and was convicted of a misdemeanor?

joseph smith plagiarizing reginald scot's discoverie of witchcraft?

scot (1584):

This was the work of one T. R. written in faire letters of red & blacke upon parchment, and made by him, Ann. 1570. to the maintenance of his living, the edifieng of the poore, and the glorie of gods holie name: as he himselfe saith.

joseph smith (18??):

The record … found with the mummies, is beautifully written on papyrus, with black, and a small part red, ink or paint, in perfect preservation. (History of the Church, 2:348.)

Q. so the question is did joseph smith have a copy of reginald scot's discoverie of witchcraft?

update:
holy piss! according to this site:
http://www.saintsalive.com/resourcelibrary/mormonism/a-necromantic-incident-joseph-smith-and-ceremonial-magic

he did!

i elaborated on this here:
http://www.exmormon.org/boards/w-agora/view.php?bn=exmobb_recovery&key=1277408091&newest=1277408091

nancy winchester married to joseph smith before she was 16

some say nancy was married to joseph smith at 14 and some say 15. the fact is that she could have at most have been 15 years old. here's why:
nancy winchester was born on august 10, 1828.
joseph smith was murdered on june 27, 1844. nancy was still 15 years old.
nancy winchester was married ("for time", thats lds for non-temple/eternal marriage) to heber c kimball on october 10, 1844.
in the same record it shows she was married to joseph smith on february 3, 1846. but joseph was dead. this means she was sealed [celestial/temple/eternal marriage] to him in the temple, for time and all eternity. this is the evidence that her marriage to heber c kimball was for time, and that she had been married to joseph smith earlier, before his death, otherwise she would have just been sealed to heber c kimball. thus, nancy was at most 15 years old when she married joseph smith when he was alive.

interestingly, the record also shows that nancy was married to yet another man later on, amos arnold, even before heber c kimball died. i found one persons opinion as to the reason for this:

...and then you see that women like Nancy Winchester weren't done being "traded" by their Mormon-leader husbands...
...'cause @ age 37, Heber Kimball traded still childless Nancy Winchester to yet another arranged marriage with Amos Arnold -- so that she could indeed have a child...

josephy smith, brigham young and polyandry

apparently joseph smith married women who were already married to living members of the lds church, as did brigham young. i looked at zina huntington as a case:
http://wivesofjosephsmith.org/05-ZinaHuntingtonJacobs.htm
http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2006_Zina_and_Her_Men.html (note: the name Zina just happens to be an arabic word for adultery: زناً)

here are records from the lds church site familysearch.org confirming the marriages:
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/IGI/individual_record.asp?recid=700128329955&lds=1®ion=11®ionfriendly=North+America&frompage=99
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/IGI/individual_record.asp?recid=100042832908&lds=1®ion=11®ionfriendly=North+America&frompage=99
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/IGI/individual_record.asp?recid=100066693886&lds=1®ion=11®ionfriendly=North+America&frompage=99
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/AF/individual_record.asp?recid=1606689&lds=0®ion=-1®ionfriendly=&frompage=99

Q. what is "the nature of spirits, of the laws by which they are governed, and the signs by which they may be known"?

in the lds teachings of the prophets: joseph smith manual, in The gift of discerning of spirits allows the faithful to distinguish between the influence of good and evil spirits, joseph smith writes:

As we have noticed before, the great difficulty lies in the ignorance of the nature of spirits, of the laws by which they are governed, and the signs by which they may be known; if it requires the Spirit of God to know the things of God; and the spirit of the devil can only be unmasked through that medium...

Q. what is the nature of spirits, of the laws by which they are governed, and the signs by which they may be known?