Top 10 Embarrassments of the Mormon Cult

Top 10 Embarrassments of the Mormon Religion

by Zabrina

Mormonism is a religion less than two centuries old, but in this short time it has managed to accrue a long list of embarrassments which the church leaders would prefer were kept silent. These embarrassments range from textual inaccuracies to scandals in the life of the founder, Joseph Smith. Of all religions, it’s difficult to believe this one has caught on given the long list of embarrassments that follows!

10

False Book

Embarrassment: Book of Abraham

The Book of Abraham, one of the central texts of Mormonism, is a poor translation of Egyptian papyri. Fragments of the original text were found and studied by renowned historians with credentials and experience. These experts discovered the fragments to be scraps of funeral spells used to help spirits move on to the afterlife. There were no resemblances between the text and the supposedly divinely-inspired translation that Smith invented. As well as the mainstream Mormon church, other related churches, such as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, still believe it to be a canon work that represents the will of God. Apologists for the Book claim that modern Egyptologists are simply translating the text wrong – basically meaning that Joseph Smith is the only human to have lived who understood Egyptian hieroglyphics correctly (aside from the Egyptians themselves of course).

9

Martyr or Coward?

Embarrassment: Smith’s death – suicide, heroic, or somewhere in between?

Some say that Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, fought back bravely against attackers, but others believe he committed suicide by jumping out of a window. A few things are certain – he shot and was shot, and at some point, fell out of a window. He used a smuggled pistol to shoot at a mob and did not die a martyr’s death in any case, as is claimed by many Mormons. There is quite a stark contrast between Christian martyrs who – in virtually every case – trusted God enough to welcome their death and Joseph Smith who so lacked belief in his own “religion” that he was terrified of dying.

8

Missing History

Embarrassment: No archaeological evidence

The claims made by the Book of Mormon mention specific tools, technologies, crops, and animals that simply didn’t exist in those regions at the times stated. For example, horses, cattle, sheep, and swine weren’t roaming between 2500 BC and 400 AD, as claimed. Most of these species were introduced in 1493 by Christopher Columbus. Similarly, barley and wheat weren’t grown, iron and steel weren’t being produced, and systems of weight and measurement such as the Mormons claim existed simply aren’t supported by archaeological evidence.

7

Plagiarism

Embarrassment: Plagiarism of the King James Bible

There are specific quotes in the Book of Mormon that are found in the King James Bible and other modern works that Joseph Smith had access to. For example, Alma 5:52 is identical almost word-for-word to Matthew 3:10. Smith plagiarized 478 verses from the book of Isaiah, and 201 are identical to the King James Bible. If this book were truly divinely inspired, it wouldn’t have been pieced together from pieces of the books that Smith read!

6

Mormon Underwear

 

Embarrassment: Magical underpants

The temple garments worn by Mormons supposedly provide protection against temptation and sins. They are even credited with saving people’s lives during natural disasters in Mormon urban legends, which is ridiculous to most people without supernatural beliefs in magical clothes. They are seen as sacred and cannot be removed unless absolutely necessary, but then should be put on again as soon as possible. One wonders whether Mitt Romney’s underwear is “Mormon-approved.”

5

Polygamy

Embarrassment: Polygamy – now it’s valid, now it isn’t?

The first forty years of Mormonism involved plural marriage, a form of harem-keeping by men who were taught by Joseph Smith that it was a doctrine worth following. Smith then proceeded to marry half a dozen women in 1843, yet he denied to the public that he practiced this polygamy. He had at least forty wives in his lifetime, some of whom were thirteen years old, and Brigham Young had fifty wives. Now, the modern view is that polygamy is unacceptable, which seems to be a revelation brought about by the illegality of polygamy. The Mormon god can has changed his mind, it seems!

4

Lost Text

Embarrassment: First translation mysteriously lost

The Book of Mormon, when first translated, was given to a friend who supposedly lost them. Joseph Smith should have been able to retranslate them from his “golden tablets” – the original source of this book – and yet he found an excuse to avoid this. He said that they were not allowed to be in the Book of Mormon anymore, clearly because if the original were to be found and compared with the new translation, the inconsistencies in the text he made up would be discovered. Pictured above are seven lines that Smith claimed he copied directly from the mysterious (and missing) golden tablets on which he said the Book of Mormon was written.

3

False Witnesses

Embarrassment: Witnesses were excommunicated

Two groups of witnesses supposedly saw the translation of the Book of Mormon, yet they were all excommunicated after disagreements with Smith. It seems the first group of three witnesses found it too much of a hoax to stay in the church after witnessing this, so a second group needed to be found. These eight men signed statements claiming to have seen and handled the golden plates, though it was later revealed that they hadn’t actually done so. In other words, Smith forced them to lie about seeing the plates.

2

Stolen Rituals

Embarrassment: Stolen temple rituals

Symbols and rituals for Mormon temples were stolen from Freemasonry. Some of these rituals include the symbols on the “magic underpants” worn by Mormons, a secret handshake that Freemasons exchange somehow becoming the handshake people must give angels in order to enter the highest heavenly kingdom, and more. Joseph Smith was expelled from the Freemasons for this theft, though he still tried to appeal to the Masons in the mob that came to kill him by giving the first words of a Mason signal of distress, abandoning his created faith in his last moments.

1

Slaughter of Innocents

Embarrassment: Mountain Meadows Massacre

In the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, a gang of Mormons banded up to attack a wagon train of families from Arkansas on their way to California. The aggressors pretended to be Native Americans so they could achieve a political goal, and when they feared discovery by the victims, murdered about 120 men, women, and children over the age of seven in order to avoid leaving witnesses to testify as to who was really behind the attacks.

These embarrassments add up to a damning conclusion: Joseph Smith managed to string along his followers for decades, and even today, churches and communities exist that believe these ridiculous fantasies. The embarrassments listed above are just the beginning for the Mormon community, who would just as soon explain away each reason to doubt their deeply-held convictions – a sad state of affairs for any logical human being.

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• Sorry Mrs. Romney, Comparing Serving In Mormon Missions To Military Service Is Insulting (crooksandliars.com)
• Beware the Mormon in the Grass (counterpunch.org)
• Beware the Mormon in the grass (sott.net)
• Mitt Romney, Mormon Cult Leader Fools Christians Into Voting For Him – If Not Mormon, You Are Not Saved! (truelogic.wordpress.com)
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The False Equation: Religion Equals Morality

The False Equation: Religion Equals Morality

by Gwynne Dyer

In the United States, where it is almost impossible to get elected unless you profess a strong religious faith, it would have passed completely unnoticed. Not one of the hundred US senators ticks the “No Religion/Atheist/Agnostic” box, for example, although 16 percent of the American population do. But it was quite remarkable in Britain.

Last Friday, UK Prime Minister David Cameron urged the Church of England to lead a revival of traditional Christian values to counter the country’s “moral collapse”.Last Friday, in Oxford, Prime Minister David Cameron declared that the United Kingdom is a Christian country “and we should not be afraid to say so.” He was speaking on the 400th anniversary of the King James translation of the Bible, so he had to say something positive about religion – but he went far beyond that.

“The Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today,” he said. “Values and morals we should actively stand up and defend.”

Where to start? The King James Bible was published at the start of a century in which millions of Europeans were killed in religious wars over minor differences of doctrine. Thousands of “witches” were burned at the stake during the 16th century, as were thousands of “heretics”. They have stopped doing that sort of thing in Britain now – but they’ve also stopped reading the Bible. Might there be a connection here?

Besides, what Cameron said is just not true. In last year’s British Social Attitudes Survey, conducted annually by the National Center for Social Research, only 43 percent of 4,000 British people interviewed said they were Christian, while 51 percent said they had “no religion.” Among young people, some two-thirds are non-believers.

Mind you, the official census numbers from 2001 say that 73 percent of British people identify themselves as “Christian”. However, this is probably due to a leading question on the census form. “What is your religion?” it asks, which seems to assume that you must have one – especially since it follows a section on ethnic origins, and we all have those.

So a lot of people put down Christian just because that is the ancestral religion of their family. Make the question more neutral – “Are you religious? If so, what is your religion?” –and the result would probably be very different. There were attempts to get that more neutral question onto the 2011 census form, but the churches lobbied frantically against it. They are feeling marginalized enough as it is.

Why would David Cameron proclaim the virtues of a Christian Britain that no longer exists? He is no religious fanatic; he describes himself as a “committed” but only “vaguely practicing” Christian.

You’d think that if he really believed in a God who scrutinizes his every thought and deed, and will condemn him to eternal torture in Hell if he doesn’t meet the standard of behavior required, he might be a little less vague about it all. But he doesn’t really believe that he needs religion HIMSELF; he thinks it is a necessary instrument of social control for keeping the lower orders in check.

This is a common belief among those who rule, because they confuse morality with religion. If the common folk do not fear some god (any old god will do), social discipline will collapse and the streets will run with blood. Our homes, our children, even our domestic animals will be violated. Thank god for God.

Just listen to Cameron: “The alternative of moral neutrality should not be an option. You can’t fight something with nothing. If we don’t stand for something, we can’t stand against anything.” The “alternative of moral neutrality”? What he means is that there cannot be moral behavior without religion – so you proles had better go on believing, or we privileged people will be in trouble.

But Cameron already lives in a post-religious country. Half its people say outright that they have no religion, two-thirds of them never attend a religious service, and a mere 8 percent go to church, mosque, synagogue or temple on a weekly basis. Yet the streets are not running with blood.

Indeed, religion may actually be bad for morality. In 2005 Paul Gregory made the case for this in a research paper in the Journal of Religion and Society entitled “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies: A First Look.”

Sociological gobbledygook, but in a statistical survey of 18 developed democracies, Gregory showed that “In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, (venereal disease), teen pregnancy, and abortion.”

Even within the United States, Gregory reported, “the strongly theistic, anti-evolution South and Midwest” have markedly worse crime rates and social problems than the relatively secular North-East. Of course, the deeply religious areas are also poorer, so it might just be poverty making people behave so badly. On the other hand, maybe religion causes poverty.

Whatever. The point is that David Cameron, and thousands of other politicians, religious leaders and generals in every country, are effectively saying that my children, and those of all the other millions who have no religion, are morally inferior to those who do. It is insulting and untrue.

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Gwynne Dyer has worked as a freelance journalist, columnist, broadcaster and lecturer on international affairs for more than 20 years, but he was originally trained as an historian. Born in Newfoundland, he received degrees from Canadian, American and British universities. His latest book, “Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats“, was published in the United States by Oneworld.