Not only that, but I just completed a series of discussions of the Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon, using H. Gorton's (1994) analysis of the changes to antisemitic meanings (which Gorton lauds), and D. Wright's (2002) analysis of missed corrections of the KJV text. The composite of the studies is quite revealing. The changes and lack of changes reveal a grossly mangled set of chapters.

No inspiration or ancient text there.

That sounds pretty condescending.

I think He caused the Big Bang. I think He sent Jesus to Earth to pay for all our sins. That second one was the big accomplishment.

I also think He inspired Joseph Smith to set up His church the way He wanted it, and that He inspired Smith's successors down to and including Thomas Monson, to lead His church the way He wanted it led.

I agree with Krose.

And I think the real problem is that when Christian critics get Mormons skeptical enough to question their faith, those critics are surprised to see their clients applying the same criticism to the Biblical Christian claims.

The LDS Church doesn't confuse its members who then leave. It's just that after being exposed to LDS ideas no other religions make sense. When Christian critics manage to tear it down, they don't realize it but they're really tearing down Biblical Christianity as well.

Thews, are you referring to how Joseph Smith described the two people He saw back in 1820? I really don't see how you can say that the "LDS version of Jesus Christ" is all that different from the Biblical Christian one, so if you could point out how they're different I'd really appreciate it.


Thews, what exactly do you mean by an imperfect God?


Latter-day Saints don't believe that God makes mistakes; it's the men He chooses as His spokesmen that make mistakes. God knew that Joseph Smith was the best man of his time to take God's message to the world, so He chose him. That doesn't mean Smith wouldn't make mistakes; God knew Smith would make mistakes. God just knew that despite the mistakes Smith made Smith would still get God's message out the way He wanted it. The same thing with Brigham Young and his successors.

Brilliant.

So, all knowing God selects people who misrepresent Him and His doctrine and that's not a mistake. Brilliant.

Drifting, what do you mean by "all knowing"? People use that phrase a lot, but I'm not sure any of them know what it means.

But regardless, no matter what God knows, there's no way to get around the fact that any given human being will misrepresent Him to some extent, and His doctrine to some extent. If you believe in a God who is all-powerful (once again, whatever that ill-defined adjective actually means), perhaps you can argue that God is capable of creating men who will always describe God and His doctrine perfectly, without any error.

But Latter-day Saints don't believe that God has the power to do literally anything that can be imagined. In particular God cannot create intelligence, and a pretty much universal tendency to mess up comes with intelligence. So God is forced to choose as His spokesmen men who He knows will eventually mess up to some degree. God chose men who He knew would distort Him and His message as little as possible, and yes, that choice was not a mistake. Better to have spokesmen who get the general message right than to have no spokesmen at all.

MCB and Aristotle Smith, were either of you planning on responding to this?

God's spokesmen, the prophets, try to get everyone to repent and come to the Lord instead and see and speak with the Lord directly. That way there is no-one in-between to mess it up.

I simply believe that marrying other men's wives, lying about the Book of Abraham, lying about the Book of Mormon, changing his accounts of the first vision, inventing the concept of priesthood authority after the fact, changing the D&C revelations, constantly lying to Emma, constantly lying to the rank and file LDS members, trying to establish a theocracy, and stealing Masonic ceremony and passing it off as a revelation from God disqualifies Joseph Smith from being a trustworthy source for any doctrine about God. As such I don't take a position on whether the Mormon God is evil or not, he doesn't exist.

Then I guess the question is, which makes more sense, believing in a God for whom there is extremely little evidence that S/He exists, but who, if S/He does exist, is good; or believing in a God for whose existence Biblical Christians say there is a lot of evidence, but who is the very personification of evil?

If all the things the critics say about Joseph Smith turn out to be true, then, Aristotle, I agree with you that it would be very easy to conclude that Smith just made everything up. But I would believe in the deity Smith described any day, long before I ever brought myself to worship someone who had the power to cause souls to cease to exist, and yet chose to let the unsaved endure unbearable agony for the rest of eternity.