Black Mormon Celebrity's Expression of Faith Brings Catholic Mesa, AZ School Teacher to Tears!

Thank you Michael for deciding that it is not opinion it is fact. Are you perhaps related to Al Gore? Since he decided the debate over global warming was over and it was now a fact.

Utah Mormons do have more problems, yes, that is true. I know now that I live in Utah. But it isn't Utah Mormons, it is a higher percentage that happen to be Mormon.

If 10% of the population is bad, no matter what the religion in a state like Washington state where we make up, say, 10% of the population. Then there will be one bad Mormon per ten, right? Then let us say you go to Utah. The same 10%is bad, but here Mormons make up 90% of the population. So now you have nine bad Mormons. See? It is just math.

A person is a person, and they can be bad no matter what religion they belong to.

having lived in idaho and utah since 1975 i have concluded that there is a difference between utah mormons and real mormons. get away from areas where mormons are the majority and you will see them for what they are; caring, loving, non-judgemental people. utah mormons are arrogant, self-serving, judgemental and rude.
this is not opinion, it is fact.

Faith is believing in things that are not seen. I honestly believe that faults are left in everything religious so that there is room for disbelief. For my black brothers and sisters I am sure it is the church history with regards to blacks holding the priesthood. Most wouldn't take the time to see that we were one of the first churches to have black preachers in front of white congregations. Or that our services were open to blacks whereas other churches forced them to carry on their own services so they didn't have to mix.

What different leaders say also causes room for doubt. Untold numbers have left our church because of what different leaders have said, or not said. What they say is their own opinions, or things that they have heard somewhere. They are the opinions of men of God, not of God Himself.

I find it amusing that you say that this great preacher found Joseph Smith to be "illiterate", this cements to me the fact that Joseph Smith did not write the Book of Mormon. Although his lack of education has left it's mark in the earlier edition as you pointed out. You also quote a ton of people who say how the translation was done. Not one of those people is Joseph Smith himself. They explain the translation process to the best of THEIR understanding. The only person who actually knew what it was like was Joseph himself. I don't see you providing any direct quotes from him.

Brigham Young's beliefs I find amusing, but not something that would question my belief in him as a leader. He also was not well educated, he was a prophet of the people. The problem with having men as leaders is that they are only men. They have their own opinions, and speak not only on Godly matters but on matters of men and their opinions on such things.

Where are the converts to Mormons? Well, my father is one, and so is my husband. My father was raving drunk when he threw his arm around a Mormon cheerleader and asked what made her so special. He quit drinking instantly. He also had smoked and gave it up instantly. So there is one. My husband comes from a family where he was horribly abused. Supposedly that would make him an abuser as well. His father abused not only alcohol but drugs as well. It ruined his marriage and most of his life. My husband joined the LDS church at a young age and has not touched alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.

The Bible does talk about baptisms for the dead in another section although I cannot remember where. Perhaps another member can help me out on that.

As to how much the prophet makes I don't see how that is really any of your business. Or anyone else's. Did you know that Mormon clergy are not paid. Do you know they dedicate huge amounts of time to fulfilling calling that they are not paid for. I would know, my father was a bishop for six years. He went straight from his full time job to the bishop's office on more nights than I can count, although most nights he did get to come home and have dinner with us. I do not know another church that has such dedicated members, and I know a great number of churches that have pastors who would not be a pastor if they weren't paid.

MORMONS DO NOT BELIEVE IN SALVATION BY WORKS! Read Believing Christ and you will see that. We believe in salvation by grace AND by works. Christ said "come follow me", not "roll around in evil, but if you are really sorry after that it is ok".

The Bible teaches that in order to figure out if something is good or evil you should examine the "fruits" of the person or organization. Fruits is the product of the endevors of a person or organization. Well, let me see... we have one of the largest welfare organizations in the world. It is not only for our members because I have been to the bishop's storehouse. I have seen non-members there. I have also been a part of numerous service projects for non-members and more organizations than I can count. After hurricane Andrew we were on the scene before the Red Cross. And most telling is the service in the life of our members. Growing up, every single, solitary Christmas Eve I can remember was spent in service; caroling at rest homes (presenting them with handmade quilts and other member made gifts), putting on plays of the nativity to spread the word of the real meaning of Christmas, and some people even volunteer their time at homeless shelters and soup kitchens across the country (on Christmas Eve!), an opportunity that a lot of others use to get drunk or in other ways indulge themselves.

The Bible was written on another continent, everyone in it is white. It teaches that unless a person knows and accepts Christ as the son of God IN THIS LIFE(!) that they are damned to hell. Tell me how a loving father could do that to His children! That through an accident of birth, merely being born on the wrong continent the ancestors of the American Indians, the Asains, the Africans, and countless others around the globe could be damned to an eternal hell. And you call us racist? One of the most righteous men in the Book of Mormon is Samuel the Lamanite, since you probably don't know, a Lamanite is an ancestor to the American Indians and Mexican Indians. The Book of Mormon states that they were so righteous at the time that Christ visited the American continent that they were able to perform miracles by the faith in His powers. Indians! Now tell me... tell me how we are racist, when you and other "Christians" who believe our ancestors will burn in hell for eternity because they didn't get the chance to know Christ... aren't.

Joseph Smith once made the claim that the Book of Mormon was "...the most correct of any book on the earth ... " (History of the Church, Vol. 4, page 461). Over the next 170+ years, Mormon apologists have defended the book and this bold claim by saying that the first Prophet of this dispensation was merely saying the doctrines of the Book of Mormon were "the most correct of any book on the earth" and that the thousands of changes made to the book were, almost without exception, minor grammatical and/or punctuation changes.

"...enemies of the Church...have made the statement that there have been one or two or more thousand changes in the Book of Mormon since the first edition was published. Well, of course, there is no truth in that statement." (The Improvement Era, December, 1961, pg. 924)

Should we expect perfection?

Surprisingly, the answer to this question is Yes. We have detailed information as to exactly how the Book of Mormon was translated. It was, quite literally, supposed to have been the first book ever written with the aid of God himself. Considering the methodical means by which the gold plates were translated, there was little, if any, room for error. Consider the following quotes:

"I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English." (An Address to All Believers in Christ, by David Whitmer, 1887, page 12)

"'Martin [Harris] explained the translation as follows: By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the prophet and written by Martin, and when finished he would say, "Written," and if correctly written, that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven (sic) on the plates, precisely in the language then used.'" (Myth of the Manuscript Found, Juvenile Instructor Office, 1883 edition, page 91)

George Reynolds, who was a member of the First Council of the Seventy, 1890-1909, made this statement in 1883:

"But at the outset it must be recollected that the translation was accomplished by no common method, by no ordinary means. It was done by divine aid. There were no delays over obscure passages, no difficulties over the choice of words, no stoppages from the ignorance of the translator; no time was wasted in investigation or argument over the value, intent or meaning of certain characters, and there were no references to authorities. These difficulties to human work were removed. All was as simple as when a clerk writes from dictation. The translation of the characters appeared on the Urim and Thummim, sentence by sentence, and as soon as one was correctly transcribed the next would appear." (Myth of the Manuscript Found, 1883 edition, page 71)

Oliver B. Huntington recorded in his journal that in 1881 Joseph F. Smith, who became the sixth President of the Mormon Church, taught that the Lord gave Joseph Smith the exact English wording and spelling that he should use in the Book of Mormon:

"Saturday Feb. 25, 1881, I went to Provo to a quarterly Stake Conference. Heard Joseph F. Smith describe the manner of translating the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith the Prophet and Seer, which was as follows as near as I can recollect the substance of his description. Joseph did not render the writing on the gold plates into the English language in his own style of language as many people believe, but every word and every letter was given to him by the gift and power of God. So it is the work of God and not of Joseph Smith, and it was done in this way .... The Lord caused each word spelled as it is in the book to appear on the stones in short sentences or words, and when Joseph had uttered the sentence or word before him and the scribe had written it properly, that sentence would disappear and another appear. And if there was a word wrongly written or even a letter incorrect the writing on the stones would remain there. Then Joseph would require the scribe to spell the reading of the last spoken and thus find the mistake and when corrected the sentence would disappear as usual." (Journal of Oliver B. Huntington, page 168 of typed copy at Utah State Historical Society)

Major changes

The four following revisions occur in 1 Nephi. Since passages in the rest of the Book of Mormon which described Jesus as Father and Supreme God were not changed, is it possible that Joseph Smith intended to revise the whole Book of Mormon to reflect tritheism but only barely began the project? He may have given up, realizing that revising the Book of Mormon's theology would often require major rewriting rather than simple insertions or word replacement.
1830 Edition
1837 Edition (emphasis added)

1 Ne. 11:19
the virgin whom thou seest is the
mother of God, after the manner of
the flesh

1 Ne. 11:19
the virgin whom thou seest is the
mother of the Son of God, after the
manner of the flesh.


1 Ne. 11:21
Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father!


1 Ne. 11:21
Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even
the Son of the Eternal Father!


1 Ne. 11:32
[the Lamb of God] was taken by the people; yea, the everlasting God was judged of the world.


1 Ne. 11:32
[the Lamb of God] was taken by the people; yea, the Son of the everlasting God was judged of the world.



1 Ne. 13:40
[these records] shall make known to
all that the Lamb of God is the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world.


1 Ne. 13:40
[these records] shall make known to
all that the Lamb of God is the Son
of the Eternal Father, and the Savior
of the world.

The original text of Mosiah 21:28 reads: "And now Limhi was again filled with joy, on learning from the mouth of Ammon that king Benjamin had a gift from God, whereby he could interpret such engravings; yea, and Ammon also did rejoice."

The problem, of course, is that king Benjamin was dead by this time (Mosiah 6:5). This reference was changed to 'Mosiah' in the 1837 and subsequent editions. However, it appears that this was not the only
place where such a change was made. The original text of Ether 4:1 reads: "...and for this cause did king Benjamin keep them, that they should not come unto the world until after Christ shew himself unto his people."

Again, Benjamin was changed to "Mosiah" in subsequent editions. The fact that there are two such changes leads one to speculate that Joseph Smith may possibly have had a slightly different course in mind for the life of King Benjamin and had perhaps killed off Benjamin prematurely while rewriting the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon.

The original text of I Nephi 12:18 reads: "...yea, even the word of the justice of the Eternal God, and Jesus Christ, which is the Lamb of God..."

The problem here is that the name 'Jesus Christ' was not revealed to the Nephites until II Nephi 10:3.
"Wherefore, as I said unto you, it must needs be expedient that Christ--for in the last night the angel spake unto me that this should be his name--should come among the Jews..."

In order to correct this contradiction, the text of I Nephi 12:18 was changed to read 'Messiah' instead of 'Jesus Christ'. How does the church explain that?

The original text of I Nephi 20:1 reads:
"Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel; yet they swear not in truth, nor righteousness."

In 1840 this verse was changed to read:
"Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, or out of the waters of baptism , who swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, yet they swear not in truth nor in righteousness."

The phrase "or out of the waters of baptism" was inserted in the 1840 edition. Why did it take God ten years to decide to introduce the ordinance of baptism into Old Testament text?

Speaking of baptism, the word appears 25 times in the book of Mormon, the word baptize appears 28 tims. The word baptizing is in it 6 times, and the word baptized is there 85 times. Guess how many times the doctrine of baptism for the dead is mentioned, Emily in Salt Lake City? Absolutely zero, zip, zilch, nada single time is there anything about baptism for the dead. If is such a great commanment, then why did not Jesus mention it at all? Jesus said, "The first of all commandments is Hear O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heard, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the FIRST COMMANDMENT. And the second is like, namely this, Thous shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other COMMANDMENT GREATER than these" Mark 12:28-31. That means a true Christian will love all those around him and not discriminate.

In the Bible the practice of baptizing for the dead is mentioned only once; and those who practise baptism for the dead are counted as HEATHEN by the Apostle Paul, who is a true Apostle according to the Bible, which says you must have seen Jesus alive in order to be one. In 1st Corinthians 15:29 Paul writs, "Else what shally THEY do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are THEY then baptized for the dead?" If the Apostle Paul practiced baptism for the dead, or had the Christians at Corinth practised baptism for the dead, then why didn't he say, "Else what shall I do..", or "Else what shall we do...?" Instead, Paul refers to a heathen practice and says "Else what shall they do..."

The Book of Mormon teaches this about it. "Ye cannot say, when ye are brough to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this;for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have the power to possess your body in that eternal world. For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked", Alma 34:34-35

Doctrine and Covenants section 42, verse 12 states: "And again, the elders, priests, and teachers of this church shall teach the principles of my gospel, which are in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, in which is the fulness of the gospel" (Section 20 verses 8,9)

If the Bible and the Book of Mormon contain the fulness of the gospel, as stated above, and neither of them teaches baptism for the dead, those who teach this practice are teaching a FALSE DOCTRINE, would you not agree?

In 1978, under pressure, the LDS Church had a "revelation" about accepting blacks. Those close to the situationsay, though, it was a corporate decision. They were getting too much bad press by refusing them any longer. The church doctrine is still the same about it.

The Lord of the King James 1611 Bible founded the REAL Church, with Jesus at the head of it. The organization is quite simple with a pastor, or a bishop and deacons. Why is the LDS church so complex with a president (that makes $500,000 a year with all expenses paid), priesthood, general authorities, counselors, First Council of Seventy, presiding bishops, patriarch to the church, stake organizations, ward organizations, etc?

In the Bible, not the book of mormon, God warns Christians about "endless genealogies" in 1st Timothy 1:4 and tells us not to give heed to that or to "fables" which minister questions. In Titus 3:9, God plainly tells us to "avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain".

Bruce McConkie(in Mormon Doctrine, page 670) says, "There is no salvation outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" John 14:6. So which one is telling the truth? And again, "Neither is there salvation in any other form: for there is none other name under heaven given by men, whereby we must be saved", Acts 4:12.

Mormon Arthur Richardson says, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no call to carry the gospel to the Negro, and it does not do so." Their church is not God's church, then for Jesus gave the Great Commission to the church to "go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" Mark 16:15. By this time, Mormons have planned to have 45,000 missionaries and predict a conversion rate of 500,000 per year. But Negroes would just have to go to Hell, according to their church teaching.

One last thing to Emily, a Mormon apostle said, "This glorious principle of eternal marriage did not come to the prophet Josheph Smith by reading the Bible (I guess not!) but by revelations of the Lord to him".

Those who know the Lord, of course, know that such "revelations" cam to Smith from his majesty, the Devil! "If they speak not according to God's word, it is because there is no light in them", Isa. 8:20.

Peter Cartright was a godly and famous Methodist preacher who lived at the time of Joseph Smith. Cartright said, "I found him (Smith) to be a very illiterate and impudent desperado in morals but at the same time he had a vast fund of low cunning." Joseph Smith told Cartright that he (Smith) would live and prosper while Cartright died in his sins. Ironically, it was Smith that was murdered by a lynch mob while Cartright went on to become one of America's great Methodist Leader. Cartright said the Mormons of Joseph Smith's day would steal the stock, plunder and burn houses; and it was believed they murdered some of the finest citizens of that time. Cartright, who said this, was a presiding elder in the Methodist Episcopal church for about 50 years.

Oh, something else, a petition has been drawn up by Christians and through Utah Missions, Inc. and presented to the Mormon Church. It is a fervent appeal to stop calling themselves Christians and identifying themselves as a church. Citing many of the hideous and unscriptural heresies of Mormonism, the petition rightly says that the teachings of Mormomism bears no relationship to historic Christianity!

Brigham Young, by the way, believed that gold, silver, and other metals grew just like the hair on his head or the wheat in the field. Young also taught that the sun and the moon were inhabited (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, p. 271) How accurate should your religious leaders be? On July 20, 1969 when man first landed on the moon, they didn't find any traces of anyone having lived there at all.

Someone has well asked, "Where are the converts in Mormonism?" In other words, why do you never hear of anyone who has been transformed by it? Where are the drunks made sober by it? And why are there no Mormon missions on skid row? Is it because they have no real message for the sinner? That's right, they don't have a real message for sinners at all. Christ can instantly change people from addicts to converts, from drunks to sober, law-abiding citizens, from raging profane sinners to dedicated, loving saints. Cults can not do this at all, and that includes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints too.

Mormonism is such a farce as a bona fide religion that men like John L. Smith and his Utah Evangel can month after month continue to find errors and oddities to write about. Smith recently quoted a Brigham Young University professor who said, "In order to understand Mormonism, one should realize that its beginnings were rooted in magic and the occult". And that comes from a Mormon professor. That same professor also said before a packed house in Utah that Joseph Smith's father believed in the link between religion and witchcraft and brought up his children in these beliefs. Astrology was also believed in and relied on in the Smith family. The professor said early Mormons were "caught up in the occult".

Based on all this, how could anyone still believe that the book of mormon is true and the church is too? Read the book "Forty Years in the Mormon Church and Why I Left It", by Bishop R. C. Evans of Toronto. It is a 173 page book in which this former priest, bishop and president of the Mormon church declares it to be "the lying wonder of the latter days".

Mormonism teachs salvation by works. But God says it is not of works, lest any man should boast, Ephesians 2:9. God says it is "by grace through faith", Ephesians 2:9 in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareht my words, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life", John 5:24. What more could you ask for?

Yes, there is more about how high you can get in the LDS church with regards to leadership if you are black, or any other race. It is only the very top ranks beyond the council of 70 that only whites are in it, and some people have been passed over that have been on the council of 70 for years, that are not white, for those that are white. It isn't hard to find the information, you just have to look for it and read it. Otherwise, that would make you part of the flat earth society.

Joseph Smith once made the claim that the Book of Mormon was "...the most correct of any book on the earth ... " (History of the Church, Vol. 4, page 461). Over the next 170+ years, Mormon apologists have defended the book and this bold claim by saying that the first Prophet of this dispensation was merely saying the doctrines of the Book of Mormon were "the most correct of any book on the earth" and that the thousands of changes made to the book were, almost without exception, minor grammatical and/or punctuation changes.

"...enemies of the Church...have made the statement that there have been one or two or more thousand changes in the Book of Mormon since the first edition was published. Well, of course, there is no truth in that statement." (The Improvement Era, December, 1961, pg. 924)

Should we expect perfection?

Surprisingly, the answer to this question is Yes. We have detailed information as to exactly how the Book of Mormon was translated. It was, quite literally, supposed to have been the first book ever written with the aid of God himself. Considering the methodical means by which the gold plates were translated, there was little, if any, room for error. Consider the following quotes:

"I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English." (An Address to All Believers in Christ, by David Whitmer, 1887, page 12)

"'Martin [Harris] explained the translation as follows: By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the prophet and written by Martin, and when finished he would say, "Written," and if correctly written, that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven (sic) on the plates, precisely in the language then used.'" (Myth of the Manuscript Found, Juvenile Instructor Office, 1883 edition, page 91)

George Reynolds, who was a member of the First Council of the Seventy, 1890-1909, made this statement in 1883:

"But at the outset it must be recollected that the translation was accomplished by no common method, by no ordinary means. It was done by divine aid. There were no delays over obscure passages, no difficulties over the choice of words, no stoppages from the ignorance of the translator; no time was wasted in investigation or argument over the value, intent or meaning of certain characters, and there were no references to authorities. These difficulties to human work were removed. All was as simple as when a clerk writes from dictation. The translation of the characters appeared on the Urim and Thummim, sentence by sentence, and as soon as one was correctly transcribed the next would appear." (Myth of the Manuscript Found, 1883 edition, page 71)

Oliver B. Huntington recorded in his journal that in 1881 Joseph F. Smith, who became the sixth President of the Mormon Church, taught that the Lord gave Joseph Smith the exact English wording and spelling that he should use in the Book of Mormon:

"Saturday Feb. 25, 1881, I went to Provo to a quarterly Stake Conference. Heard Joseph F. Smith describe the manner of translating the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith the Prophet and Seer, which was as follows as near as I can recollect the substance of his description. Joseph did not render the writing on the gold plates into the English language in his own style of language as many people believe, but every word and every letter was given to him by the gift and power of God. So it is the work of God and not of Joseph Smith, and it was done in this way .... The Lord caused each word spelled as it is in the book to appear on the stones in short sentences or words, and when Joseph had uttered the sentence or word before him and the scribe had written it properly, that sentence would disappear and another appear. And if there was a word wrongly written or even a letter incorrect the writing on the stones would remain there. Then Joseph would require the scribe to spell the reading of the last spoken and thus find the mistake and when corrected the sentence would disappear as usual." (Journal of Oliver B. Huntington, page 168 of typed copy at Utah State Historical Society)

Major changes

The four following revisions occur in 1 Nephi. Since passages in the rest of the Book of Mormon which described Jesus as Father and Supreme God were not changed, is it possible that Joseph Smith intended to revise the whole Book of Mormon to reflect tritheism but only barely began the project? He may have given up, realizing that revising the Book of Mormon's theology would often require major rewriting rather than simple insertions or word replacement.
1830 Edition
1837 Edition (emphasis added)

1 Ne. 11:19
the virgin whom thou seest is the
mother of God, after the manner of
the flesh

1 Ne. 11:19
the virgin whom thou seest is the
mother of the Son of God, after the
manner of the flesh.


1 Ne. 11:21
Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father!


1 Ne. 11:21
Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even
the Son of the Eternal Father!


1 Ne. 11:32
[the Lamb of God] was taken by the people; yea, the everlasting God was judged of the world.


1 Ne. 11:32
[the Lamb of God] was taken by the people; yea, the Son of the everlasting God was judged of the world.



1 Ne. 13:40
[these records] shall make known to
all that the Lamb of God is the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world.


1 Ne. 13:40
[these records] shall make known to
all that the Lamb of God is the Son
of the Eternal Father, and the Savior
of the world.

The original text of Mosiah 21:28 reads: "And now Limhi was again filled with joy, on learning from the mouth of Ammon that king Benjamin had a gift from God, whereby he could interpret such engravings; yea, and Ammon also did rejoice."

The problem, of course, is that king Benjamin was dead by this time (Mosiah 6:5). This reference was changed to 'Mosiah' in the 1837 and subsequent editions. However, it appears that this was not the only
place where such a change was made. The original text of Ether 4:1 reads: "...and for this cause did king Benjamin keep them, that they should not come unto the world until after Christ shew himself unto his people."

Again, Benjamin was changed to "Mosiah" in subsequent editions. The fact that there are two such changes leads one to speculate that Joseph Smith may possibly have had a slightly different course in mind for the life of King Benjamin and had perhaps killed off Benjamin prematurely while rewriting the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon.

The original text of I Nephi 12:18 reads: "...yea, even the word of the justice of the Eternal God, and Jesus Christ, which is the Lamb of God..."

The problem here is that the name 'Jesus Christ' was not revealed to the Nephites until II Nephi 10:3.
"Wherefore, as I said unto you, it must needs be expedient that Christ--for in the last night the angel spake unto me that this should be his name--should come among the Jews..."

In order to correct this contradiction, the text of I Nephi 12:18 was changed to read 'Messiah' instead of 'Jesus Christ'. How does the church explain that?

The original text of I Nephi 20:1 reads:
"Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel; yet they swear not in truth, nor righteousness."

In 1840 this verse was changed to read:
"Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, or out of the waters of baptism , who swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, yet they swear not in truth nor in righteousness."

The phrase "or out of the waters of baptism" was inserted in the 1840 edition. Why did it take God ten years to decide to introduce the ordinance of baptism into Old Testament text?

Speaking of baptism, the word appears 25 times in the book of Mormon, the word baptize appears 28 tims. The word baptizing is in it 6 times, and the word baptized is there 85 times. Guess how many times the doctrine of baptism for the dead is mentioned, Emily in Salt Lake City? Absolutely zero, zip, zilch, nada single time is there anything about baptism for the dead. If is such a great commanment, then why did not Jesus mention it at all? Jesus said, "The first of all commandments is Hear O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heard, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the FIRST COMMANDMENT. And the second is like, namely this, Thous shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other COMMANDMENT GREATER than these" Mark 12:28-31. That means a true Christian will love all those around him and not discriminate.

In the Bible the practice of baptizing for the dead is mentioned only once; and those who practise baptism for the dead are counted as HEATHEN by the Apostle Paul, who is a true Apostle according to the Bible, which says you must have seen Jesus alive in order to be one. In 1st Corinthians 15:29 Paul writs, "Else what shally THEY do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are THEY then baptized for the dead?" If the Apostle Paul practiced baptism for the dead, or had the Christians at Corinth practised baptism for the dead, then why didn't he say, "Else what shall I do..", or "Else what shall we do...?" Instead, Paul refers to a heathen practice and says "Else what shall they do..."

The Book of Mormon teaches this about it. "Ye cannot say, when ye are brough to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this;for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have the power to possess your body in that eternal world. For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked", Alma 34:34-35

Doctrine and Covenants section 42, verse 12 states: "And again, the elders, priests, and teachers of this church shall teach the principles of my gospel, which are in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, in which is the fulness of the gospel" (Section 20 verses 8,9)

If the Bible and the Book of Mormon contain the fulness of the gospel, as stated above, and neither of them teaches baptism for the dead, those who teach this practice are teaching a FALSE DOCTRINE, would you not agree?

In 1978, under pressure, the LDS Church had a "revelation" about accepting blacks. Those close to the situationsay, though, it was a corporate decision. They were getting too much bad press by refusing them any longer. The church doctrine is still the same about it.

The Lord of the King James 1611 Bible founded the REAL Church, with Jesus at the head of it. The organization is quite simple with a pastor, or a bishop and deacons. Why is the LDS church so complex with a president (that makes $500,000 a year with all expenses paid), priesthood, general authorities, counselors, First Council of Seventy, presiding bishops, patriarch to the church, stake organizations, ward organizations, etc?

In the Bible, not the book of mormon, God warns Christians about "endless genealogies" in 1st Timothy 1:4 and tells us not to give heed to that or to "fables" which minister questions. In Titus 3:9, God plainly tells us to "avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain".

Bruce McConkie(in Mormon Doctrine, page 670) says, "There is no salvation outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" John 14:6. So which one is telling the truth? And again, "Neither is there salvation in any other form: for there is none other name under heaven given by men, whereby we must be saved", Acts 4:12.

Mormon Arthur Richardson says, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no call to carry the gospel to the Negro, and it does not do so." Their church is not God's church, then for Jesus gave the Great Commission to the church to "go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" Mark 16:15. By this time, Mormons have planned to have 45,000 missionaries and predict a conversion rate of 500,000 per year. But Negroes would just have to go to Hell, according to their church teaching.

One last thing to Emily, a Mormon apostle said, "This glorious principle of eternal marriage did not come to the prophet Josheph Smith by reading the Bible (I guess not!) but by revelations of the Lord to him".

Those who know the Lord, of course, know that such "revelations" cam to Smith from his majesty, the Devil! "If they speak not according to God's word, it is because there is no light in them", Isa. 8:20.

Peter Cartright was a godly and famous Methodist preacher who lived at the time of Joseph Smith. Cartright said, "I found him (Smith) to be a very illiterate and impudent desperado in morals but at the same time he had a vast fund of low cunning." Joseph Smith told Cartright that he (Smith) would live and prosper while Cartright died in his sins. Ironically, it was Smith that was murdered by a lynch mob while Cartright went on to become one of America's great Methodist Leader. Cartright said the Mormons of Joseph Smith's day would steal the stock, plunder and burn houses; and it was believed they murdered some of the finest citizens of that time. Cartright, who said this, was a presiding elder in the Methodist Episcopal church for about 50 years.

Oh, something else, a petition has been drawn up by Christians and through Utah Missions, Inc. and presented to the Mormon Church. It is a fervent appeal to stop calling themselves Christians and identifying themselves as a church. Citing many of the hideous and unscriptural heresies of Mormonism, the petition rightly says that the teachings of Mormomism bears no relationship to historic Christianity!

Brigham Young, by the way, believed that gold, silver, and other metals grew just like the hair on his head or the wheat in the field. Young also taught that the sun and the moon were inhabited (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, p. 271) How accurate should your religious leaders be? On July 20, 1969 when man first landed on the moon, they didn't find any traces of anyone having lived there at all.

Someone has well asked, "Where are the converts in Mormonism?" In other words, why do you never hear of anyone who has been transformed by it? Where are the drunks made sober by it? And why are there no Mormon missions on skid row? Is it because they have no real message for the sinner? That's right, they don't have a real message for sinners at all. Christ can instantly change people from addicts to converts, from drunks to sober, law-abiding citizens, from raging profane sinners to dedicated, loving saints. Cults can not do this at all, and that includes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints too.

Mormonism is such a farce as a bona fide religion that men like John L. Smith and his Utah Evangel can month after month continue to find errors and oddities to write about. Smith recently quoted a Brigham Young University professor who said, "In order to understand Mormonism, one should realize that its beginnings were rooted in magic and the occult". And that comes from a Mormon professor. That same professor also said before a packed house in Utah that Joseph Smith's father believed in the link between religion and witchcraft and brought up his children in these beliefs. Astrology was also believed in and relied on in the Smith family. The professor said early Mormons were "caught up in the occult".

Based on all this, how could anyone still believe that the book of mormon is true and the church is too? Read the book "Forty Years in the Mormon Church and Why I Left It", by Bishop R. C. Evans of Toronto. It is a 173 page book in which this former priest, bishop and president of the Mormon church declares it to be "the lying wonder of the latter days".

Mormonism teachs salvation by works. But God says it is not of works, lest any man should boast, Ephesians 2:9. God says it is "by grace through faith", Ephesians 2:9 in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareht my words, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life", John 5:24. What more could you ask for?

Yes, there is more about how high you can get in the LDS church with regards to leadership if you are black, or any other race. It is only the very top ranks beyond the council of 70 that only whites are in it, and some people have been passed over that have been on the council of 70 for years, that are not white, for those that are white. It isn't hard to find the information, you just have to look for it and read it. Otherwise, that would make you part of the flat earth society.

Joseph Smith once made the claim that the Book of Mormon was "...the most correct of any book on the earth ... " (History of the Church, Vol. 4, page 461). Over the next 170+ years, Mormon apologists have defended the book and this bold claim by saying that the first Prophet of this dispensation was merely saying the doctrines of the Book of Mormon were "the most correct of any book on the earth" and that the thousands of changes made to the book were, almost without exception, minor grammatical and/or punctuation changes.

"...enemies of the Church...have made the statement that there have been one or two or more thousand changes in the Book of Mormon since the first edition was published. Well, of course, there is no truth in that statement." (The Improvement Era, December, 1961, pg. 924)

Should we expect perfection?

Surprisingly, the answer to this question is Yes. We have detailed information as to exactly how the Book of Mormon was translated. It was, quite literally, supposed to have been the first book ever written with the aid of God himself. Considering the methodical means by which the gold plates were translated, there was little, if any, room for error. Consider the following quotes:

"I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English." (An Address to All Believers in Christ, by David Whitmer, 1887, page 12)

"'Martin [Harris] explained the translation as follows: By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the prophet and written by Martin, and when finished he would say, "Written," and if correctly written, that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven (sic) on the plates, precisely in the language then used.'" (Myth of the Manuscript Found, Juvenile Instructor Office, 1883 edition, page 91)

George Reynolds, who was a member of the First Council of the Seventy, 1890-1909, made this statement in 1883:

"But at the outset it must be recollected that the translation was accomplished by no common method, by no ordinary means. It was done by divine aid. There were no delays over obscure passages, no difficulties over the choice of words, no stoppages from the ignorance of the translator; no time was wasted in investigation or argument over the value, intent or meaning of certain characters, and there were no references to authorities. These difficulties to human work were removed. All was as simple as when a clerk writes from dictation. The translation of the characters appeared on the Urim and Thummim, sentence by sentence, and as soon as one was correctly transcribed the next would appear." (Myth of the Manuscript Found, 1883 edition, page 71)

Oliver B. Huntington recorded in his journal that in 1881 Joseph F. Smith, who became the sixth President of the Mormon Church, taught that the Lord gave Joseph Smith the exact English wording and spelling that he should use in the Book of Mormon:

"Saturday Feb. 25, 1881, I went to Provo to a quarterly Stake Conference. Heard Joseph F. Smith describe the manner of translating the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith the Prophet and Seer, which was as follows as near as I can recollect the substance of his description. Joseph did not render the writing on the gold plates into the English language in his own style of language as many people believe, but every word and every letter was given to him by the gift and power of God. So it is the work of God and not of Joseph Smith, and it was done in this way .... The Lord caused each word spelled as it is in the book to appear on the stones in short sentences or words, and when Joseph had uttered the sentence or word before him and the scribe had written it properly, that sentence would disappear and another appear. And if there was a word wrongly written or even a letter incorrect the writing on the stones would remain there. Then Joseph would require the scribe to spell the reading of the last spoken and thus find the mistake and when corrected the sentence would disappear as usual." (Journal of Oliver B. Huntington, page 168 of typed copy at Utah State Historical Society)

Major changes

The four following revisions occur in 1 Nephi. Since passages in the rest of the Book of Mormon which described Jesus as Father and Supreme God were not changed, is it possible that Joseph Smith intended to revise the whole Book of Mormon to reflect tritheism but only barely began the project? He may have given up, realizing that revising the Book of Mormon's theology would often require major rewriting rather than simple insertions or word replacement.
1830 Edition
1837 Edition (emphasis added)

1 Ne. 11:19
the virgin whom thou seest is the
mother of God, after the manner of
the flesh

1 Ne. 11:19
the virgin whom thou seest is the
mother of the Son of God, after the
manner of the flesh.


1 Ne. 11:21
Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father!


1 Ne. 11:21
Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even
the Son of the Eternal Father!


1 Ne. 11:32
[the Lamb of God] was taken by the people; yea, the everlasting God was judged of the world.


1 Ne. 11:32
[the Lamb of God] was taken by the people; yea, the Son of the everlasting God was judged of the world.



1 Ne. 13:40
[these records] shall make known to
all that the Lamb of God is the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world.


1 Ne. 13:40
[these records] shall make known to
all that the Lamb of God is the Son
of the Eternal Father, and the Savior
of the world.

The original text of Mosiah 21:28 reads: "And now Limhi was again filled with joy, on learning from the mouth of Ammon that king Benjamin had a gift from God, whereby he could interpret such engravings; yea, and Ammon also did rejoice."

The problem, of course, is that king Benjamin was dead by this time (Mosiah 6:5). This reference was changed to 'Mosiah' in the 1837 and subsequent editions. However, it appears that this was not the only
place where such a change was made. The original text of Ether 4:1 reads: "...and for this cause did king Benjamin keep them, that they should not come unto the world until after Christ shew himself unto his people."

Again, Benjamin was changed to "Mosiah" in subsequent editions. The fact that there are two such changes leads one to speculate that Joseph Smith may possibly have had a slightly different course in mind for the life of King Benjamin and had perhaps killed off Benjamin prematurely while rewriting the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon.

The original text of I Nephi 12:18 reads: "...yea, even the word of the justice of the Eternal God, and Jesus Christ, which is the Lamb of God..."

The problem here is that the name 'Jesus Christ' was not revealed to the Nephites until II Nephi 10:3.
"Wherefore, as I said unto you, it must needs be expedient that Christ--for in the last night the angel spake unto me that this should be his name--should come among the Jews..."

In order to correct this contradiction, the text of I Nephi 12:18 was changed to read 'Messiah' instead of 'Jesus Christ'. How does the church explain that?

The original text of I Nephi 20:1 reads:
"Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel; yet they swear not in truth, nor righteousness."

In 1840 this verse was changed to read:
"Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, or out of the waters of baptism , who swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, yet they swear not in truth nor in righteousness."

The phrase "or out of the waters of baptism" was inserted in the 1840 edition. Why did it take God ten years to decide to introduce the ordinance of baptism into Old Testament text?

Speaking of baptism, the word appears 25 times in the book of Mormon, the word baptize appears 28 tims. The word baptizing is in it 6 times, and the word baptized is there 85 times. Guess how many times the doctrine of baptism for the dead is mentioned, Emily in Salt Lake City? Absolutely zero, zip, zilch, nada single time is there anything about baptism for the dead. If is such a great commanment, then why did not Jesus mention it at all? Jesus said, "The first of all commandments is Hear O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heard, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the FIRST COMMANDMENT. And the second is like, namely this, Thous shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other COMMANDMENT GREATER than these" Mark 12:28-31. That means a true Christian will love all those around him and not discriminate.

In the Bible the practice of baptizing for the dead is mentioned only once; and those who practise baptism for the dead are counted as HEATHEN by the Apostle Paul, who is a true Apostle according to the Bible, which says you must have seen Jesus alive in order to be one. In 1st Corinthians 15:29 Paul writs, "Else what shally THEY do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are THEY then baptized for the dead?" If the Apostle Paul practiced baptism for the dead, or had the Christians at Corinth practised baptism for the dead, then why didn't he say, "Else what shall I do..", or "Else what shall we do...?" Instead, Paul refers to a heathen practice and says "Else what shall they do..."

The Book of Mormon teaches this about it. "Ye cannot say, when ye are brough to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this;for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have the power to possess your body in that eternal world. For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked", Alma 34:34-35

Doctrine and Covenants section 42, verse 12 states: "And again, the elders, priests, and teachers of this church shall teach the principles of my gospel, which are in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, in which is the fulness of the gospel" (Section 20 verses 8,9)

If the Bible and the Book of Mormon contain the fulness of the gospel, as stated above, and neither of them teaches baptism for the dead, those who teach this practice are teaching a FALSE DOCTRINE, would you not agree?

In 1978, under pressure, the LDS Church had a "revelation" about accepting blacks. Those close to the situationsay, though, it was a corporate decision. They were getting too much bad press by refusing them any longer. The church doctrine is still the same about it.

The Lord of the King James 1611 Bible founded the REAL Church, with Jesus at the head of it. The organization is quite simple with a pastor, or a bishop and deacons. Why is the LDS church so complex with a president (that makes $500,000 a year with all expenses paid), priesthood, general authorities, counselors, First Council of Seventy, presiding bishops, patriarch to the church, stake organizations, ward organizations, etc?

In the Bible, not the book of mormon, God warns Christians about "endless genealogies" in 1st Timothy 1:4 and tells us not to give heed to that or to "fables" which minister questions. In Titus 3:9, God plainly tells us to "avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain".

Bruce McConkie(in Mormon Doctrine, page 670) says, "There is no salvation outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" John 14:6. So which one is telling the truth? And again, "Neither is there salvation in any other form: for there is none other name under heaven given by men, whereby we must be saved", Acts 4:12.

Mormon Arthur Richardson says, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no call to carry the gospel to the Negro, and it does not do so." Their church is not God's church, then for Jesus gave the Great Commission to the church to "go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" Mark 16:15. By this time, Mormons have planned to have 45,000 missionaries and predict a conversion rate of 500,000 per year. But Negroes would just have to go to Hell, according to their church teaching.

One last thing to Emily, a Mormon apostle said, "This glorious principle of eternal marriage did not come to the prophet Josheph Smith by reading the Bible (I guess not!) but by revelations of the Lord to him".

Those who know the Lord, of course, know that such "revelations" cam to Smith from his majesty, the Devil! "If they speak not according to God's word, it is because there is no light in them", Isa. 8:20.

Peter Cartright was a godly and famous Methodist preacher who lived at the time of Joseph Smith. Cartright said, "I found him (Smith) to be a very illiterate and impudent desperado in morals but at the same time he had a vast fund of low cunning." Joseph Smith told Cartright that he (Smith) would live and prosper while Cartright died in his sins. Ironically, it was Smith that was murdered by a lynch mob while Cartright went on to become one of America's great Methodist Leader. Cartright said the Mormons of Joseph Smith's day would steal the stock, plunder and burn houses; and it was believed they murdered some of the finest citizens of that time. Cartright, who said this, was a presiding elder in the Methodist Episcopal church for about 50 years.

Oh, something else, a petition has been drawn up by Christians and through Utah Missions, Inc. and presented to the Mormon Church. It is a fervent appeal to stop calling themselves Christians and identifying themselves as a church. Citing many of the hideous and unscriptural heresies of Mormonism, the petition rightly says that the teachings of Mormomism bears no relationship to historic Christianity!

Brigham Young, by the way, believed that gold, silver, and other metals grew just like the hair on his head or the wheat in the field. Young also taught that the sun and the moon were inhabited (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, p. 271) How accurate should your religious leaders be? On July 20, 1969 when man first landed on the moon, they didn't find any traces of anyone having lived there at all.

Someone has well asked, "Where are the converts in Mormonism?" In other words, why do you never hear of anyone who has been transformed by it? Where are the drunks made sober by it? And why are there no Mormon missions on skid row? Is it because they have no real message for the sinner? That's right, they don't have a real message for sinners at all. Christ can instantly change people from addicts to converts, from drunks to sober, law-abiding citizens, from raging profane sinners to dedicated, loving saints. Cults can not do this at all, and that includes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints too.

Mormonism is such a farce as a bona fide religion that men like John L. Smith and his Utah Evangel can month after month continue to find errors and oddities to write about. Smith recently quoted a Brigham Young University professor who said, "In order to understand Mormonism, one should realize that its beginnings were rooted in magic and the occult". And that comes from a Mormon professor. That same professor also said before a packed house in Utah that Joseph Smith's father believed in the link between religion and witchcraft and brought up his children in these beliefs. Astrology was also believed in and relied on in the Smith family. The professor said early Mormons were "caught up in the occult".

Based on all this, how could anyone still believe that the book of mormon is true and the church is too? Read the book "Forty Years in the Mormon Church and Why I Left It", by Bishop R. C. Evans of Toronto. It is a 173 page book in which this former priest, bishop and president of the Mormon church declares it to be "the lying wonder of the latter days".

Mormonism teachs salvation by works. But God says it is not of works, lest any man should boast, Ephesians 2:9. God says it is "by grace through faith", Ephesians 2:9 in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareht my words, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life", John 5:24. What more could you ask for?

Yes, there is more about how high you can get in the LDS church with regards to leadership if you are black, or any other race. It is only the very top ranks beyond the council of 70 that only whites are in it, and some people have been passed over that have been on the council of 70 for years, that are not white, for those that are white. It isn't hard to find the information, you just have to look for it and read it. Otherwise, that would make you part of the flat earth society.

Garth,

Thank you so much for clarifying the mistakes in the Book of Mormon. Here I actually thought you might have something to say that would matter to me. I have no problem with the mistakes you mentioned. Joseph Smith was an uneducated farmer, I know this. The words you say were "wrong" show his roots, not that anything written in it is faulted. I have no problem with the country-izm of the original Book of Mormon. The church is not meant only for the educated and wealthy, it is meant for all people. Do you really think that proper grammer matters to God? Do you not think He would not publish His words in slang if it would bring people unto Him? What a snob you are!

The Bible speaks only of one man with one wife? Really? Wasn't there a prophet that was told to lie with his maid that she would bare him a child? I guess you only read the parts of the Bible that agree with your extremely twisted thinking. There is also record of prophets having multiple wives and concubines throughout the Bible. You are referring to men who practiced this without given athority and did not follow the guidelines for such marriages. I do hope that you aren't eating ham, bacon or any other pork product, since the pig is named an unclean animal in the Bible. You aren't someone who picks and chooses what he believes are you? And plural marriage is not a requirement to get to heaven, it is a form of marriage recognized in heaven. Big difference. Eternal marriage is what is required to get to the Celestial Kingdom. Which is the highest degree of heaven, and there is no addendum that it has to be to more than one wife. I don't know why this is an issue since America is currently figuring out how gay marriage will work into American lives. Isn't it "all about the love" as you people say?

The rest of the world does kill LDS members like they do other Christians. You don't see it in the news because every other country in the world recognizes us as Christians and lumps us in with the rest of them, hence no title of LDS is applied to the victims. Some of which I have known personally. The government may consider us a "cult" like France does, but the people do not and that includes reporters.

You will always find people who have had a bad experience at a business. People who feel cheated by different people or businesses. Our church is no different.

Why can we not conceive of someone leaving the church because it isn't true? Because it is. When you have the truth manifested to you by God you believe that others members have too. You believe that each of them feels the deep rooted faith, and has a personal relationship with their Savior. That makes the thought that someone would walk away... unthinkable.

When you buy a house, you get an inspector to check it out from top to bottom as anything the seller will tell you might not be the truth about how the house is built or if anything is wrong. When being part of a "church" that claims to be the only true church of God, you aren't allowed to investigate and find out the truth. Anyone that is a member of the LDS church is told what the church wants them to know and they church also frowns upon one doing independant research into the church. When one does, they find the church does not have non-whites on their councel of what they call 12 apostles. An apostle by the definition in the 1611 King James Bible is someone that saw Jesus Christ while on earth at any time during His time on earth, either before of after his death.

Jesus was not anywhere in America preaching to anyone, as he was in paradise setting the captives free and taking them with Him to heaven. That is recorded in the 1611 King James Bible, which has had very few changes to it, unlike the Book of Mormon, which has had 3,913 changes to it since it was first published in 1830. None of those changes were spelling errors either. The only parts that are legitimate are the parts that were stolen from the King James Bible.

On the title page of the first edition (which was supposed to have been translated from the gold plates) this ironic statement appears:
"... now if there be fault, it be the mistake of men ..."
In the 1964 edition this has been changed to read:
"... now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men ..."

It is interesting to note that even the signed statement by the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon has been altered. In the 1830 edition (last page) it read:
"... that Joseph Smith, Jr. the Author and Proprietor of this work, has shewn unto us the plates ... "

In the 1964 edition it reads:"... That Joseph Smith, Jun., the Translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates ... "

"...enemies of the Church...have made the statement that there have been one or two or more thousand changes in the Book of Mormon since the first edition was published. Well, of course, there is no truth in that statement." (The Improvement Era, December, 1961, pg. 924)

Ain't ain't a word
(But it would sure feel at home in the 1830 Book of Mormon)

It has already been shown that the witnesses to the translation process and also through the comments of former church leaders, that the Book of Mormon should have been virtually perfect and free from even the slightest mistakes. Certainly there shouldn't have been thousands of mistakes in what was called the most correct of any book on the earth. However, let's take a look at some of the more obvious grammatical errors Joseph Smith made while translating with the aid and power of God.

One of the most frequent mistakes in the first edition of the Book of Mormon is the use of the word "was" instead of the word "were". The following are extracts from the first edition of the Book of Mormon in which the word "was" has been changed in later editions to "were" The page number you see after each quote corresponds to the original page number that the quote was on in the 1830 Book of Mormon (which was not divided into chapters and verses). Following the page number is the location of the quote in the current Book of Mormon:

"... and also of Adam and Eve, which was our first parents ..." (page 15) [1 Nephi 5:11]
"Wherefore, all mankind was in a lost and in a fallen state ..." (page 22) [1 Nephi 10:6]
"And all these things of which I have spoken, was done ..." (page 23) [1 Nephi 10:1116]
"... and loosed the bands which was upon my wrists ..." (page 49) [1 Nephi 18:15]
"And great was the covenants of the Lord ..." (page 66) [2 Nephi 3:4]
"... and they were surrounded by the king's guard, and was taken, and was bound, and was committed to prison." (page 169) [Mosiah 7:7]
"... and these interpreters was doubtless prepared ... (page 173) [Mosiah 8:19]
"... and the seats which was set apart for the high priests, which was above all the other seats ..." (page 178) [Mosiah 11:11]
"... the arms of mercy was extended towards them; for the arms of mercy was extended ..." (page 189) [Mosiah 16:12]
"... both Alma and Helam was buried in the water ..." (page 192) [Mosiah 18:14]
"And the priests was not to depend upon the people ..." (page 193) [Mosiah 18:26]
"... and those that was with him." (page 195) [Mosiah 19:18]
"... the afflictions of the Nephites was great ..." (page 198) [Mosiah 21:5]
"... many of his people was desirous to be baptized ..." (page 200) [Mosiah 21:33]
"And now there was seven Churches ..." (page 209) [Mosiah 25:23]
"... there was many of the rising generation ..." (page 209)
"... those who committed sin that was in the church ..." (page 209)
"Now the sons of Mosiah was numbered ..." (page 212) [Mosiah 27:8]
"... I had much desire that ye was not in the state of dilemma ..." (page 241) [Alma 7:18]
"... they was angry with me ..." (page 248) [Alma 9:32]
"... the land of Nephi, and the land of Zarahemla, was nearly surrounded..."(page 288) [Alma 22:32]
"But behold there was no wild beasts ..." (page 460) [3 Nephi 4:2]

So, as you can see, how can something be from God if so many changes had to be made to correct grammar? The real reason the chuch has allowed blacks and other non whites into the church was to avoid loosing their tax expemt status as well as increasing what they take in during the offering time. Yes, there are blacks and other non whites on the council of 70, but how many are on the council of 12? It's a white man's religion that was created by a man that was charged with and convicted of being a money digger, which was a form of being a con man back in 1826. Not only that, if you compare the bom to the Bible, God condems anything other than one man and one wife. The irony is that the church still has on record of multiple marriages, like Joseph Smith practiced, as one of the qualifications to get to heaven. That means according to that, many mormons will never get there.

For more unbiased and documented information about the "true" church, from an insider who investigated and left after being lied too, check out http://www.josephlied.com and read the story as to why the guy left the church. And if you want to know more about why Jehovah's Witness's, Seventh Day Adventist, and Islam are not what they claim to be check out http://www.ftfacts.com as there is information on the LDS church as well showing why it is not the truth that it claims to be either.

THE TRUE JESUS OF THE BIBLE HAD NO BEGINNING AND HAS NO END; HE IS THE ETERNAL SON OF GOD. ONLY THIS JESUS CAN SAVE YOU! See Micah 5:2

The mormon church would have you to believe otherwise, and they claim they are the true church, yet 80% of what is taught isn't even in the book of mormon.

All a person has to do is put in the words mormon, jospeh smith and lied into any search engine to find out the church has lied to congress from the very beginning about their practices of polygamy, and many other things. So how can you believe a church that claims to be the truth when they have to hide so much by lying? Oh, before someone says anything about separation of church and state, move to the Soviet Union, as that is the only country that had the phrase "a wall of separation of church and state". You have to actually read the United States of America's Constitution, as well as Bill of Rights to see that there is nothing that calls for the separation of church and state. They had church in the basement of the US Capital when it was first built and if the Supreme Court would have considered it to be unconstitutional, they would have done so then as they were around when it was created, the Constitution that is. The second ammendment says there shall be freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, which is what is practised in muslim countries.

People in a lot of countries kill true Christians, and if you notice in the newspapers, not one of them happens to be from the lds church. Do you think the the rest of the world doesn't consider the mormon church to be true christians?

Get a building inspector to check out the house, a mechanic to check out a used car before buying, and you should compare the church or religion with something other than what they tell you. Just like buying a house, or buying a car, the seller isn't going to tell you anything that would cause you to run the other direction are they?

BTW, for all the mormons out there, I was baptized into the "true" church in 1984, and realized something wasn't quite right about it, but I couldn't put my fingers on it. I didn't have the tools to research it like I do know, and after the research available about the mormon church, I would have never allowed myself to have become snared in their web of lies and deceits, of which race happens to be one of them.

Mormons are so convinced that Mormonism is true that they can't conceive of the possibility that someone would leave the Church solely because it isn't true. I've told countless Mormons, "It's easier to see the truth when you stop assuming you already have it".]

Native American Mormons? You don't say! Oh wait, yeah, I am one. Nephites would refer to white people, whereas Lamanite refers to dark people, a title I proudly bear.

Why are there so few blacks in the our church? Maybe because they don't want to be in the church, did that occur to you? Maybe we should do some drive-by baptisms just so we can get our numbers up to appease you people? LOL

I have read the "Mormon Bible", honestly called The Book of Mormon, front to back and there is nothing that is racist in it. Don't believe me? Read it.

I am a Mormon because this is the true church. The only church that doesn't preach doctrine that my ancestors will go to hell simply for being born on a different continent than Jesus. That covers the blacks, and the asains and any other race that has ancestors of non-christian history. The only church that does not condemn billions of people and their ancestors to hell because of an accident of their birth.

The doors are open, come in and learn.

I don't know why a black Mormon should be considered so rare that a newspaper would deem to do a feature about it. There are many black Mormons, some as famous (if not more famous) than Sister Gladys. The rapper Hammer is Mormon, as are R&B singers Herb Johnson (from Peaches & Herb) and Dionne Warwick. Actors Philip Michael Thomas ("Miami Vice") and Jimmy "J.J." Walker are other famous Mormons, as are athletes Barry Bonds and Riddick Bowe.

I find it interesting and highly hypocritical of non Mormons to believe that it is the Mormon religion who have mistreated or still does mistreat people of color and are racist.

We are accused of believing in a "different Jesus" than that of other Christian faiths. I just might have to agree!

Our Jesus never asked us to put on white robes (the symbol of purity) and with his cross on our foreheads burn wooden crosses (the symbol of the "real" Jesus I guess) in the front yards of blacks.

Our Jesus never condoned the chasing, persecuting, and murdering of any innocent human beings, including blacks.

Our Jesus never insisted blacks build their own churches to worship in nor did ours insist they sit in the back rows.

Ours believed in freeing the slaves from the beginning and is one of the reasons we were hated so much by the Missourians...as many of those "Christians" were for slavery.

The only thing that was ever done was witholding
the preisthood.

Is this the same type of thing Christ himself did with Christianity when he lived? YES! Did he not make the Gentiles wait for the Gospel until a particular time when he deemed it right? YES!
We are guilty of no more than the Savior himself. If we are found to be guilty of being racist then so is he on all the same grounds.

He never condoned the mistreatment or persecution of another but some things pertaining to His gospel have seemed offensive to some. So if you are a Gentile and a Christian and you are offended at Mormonism treatment of blacks, what keeps you loving Christ who did the same to your ancestors?

We believe in good works and we believe in doing good to ALL men.

Gaining a "possition" in the Mormon church is a funny thing...You dont get paid, you dont get power, you donate your time and talents, and your family has to get along without you as you serve...It's not like gaining a possition in other churches where there is a monitary reward! Only an untangible reward is available to Mormons who serve. Some are satisfied with this type of reward and some are not.

Please judge the Mormons fairly on an equal scale as that of our accusers.

There have been black Mormons since 1832; two years after the Mormon Church was founded in upstate New York. Joseph Smith, the Prophet-founder, advocated freedom, education, and equal rights for blacks at a time when even most Abolitionists had no intention of "equal rights" for blacks. There are hundreds of thousands of black Mormons on earth today. Gladys Knight is a celebrity, and OF COURSE they're gonna use her, and she WANTS TO BE USED to share her testimony of Jesus and the Church.

The Black Mormon Homepage

http://www.angelfire.com/mo2
/blackmormon/homepage.html

There have been black Mormons since 1832; two years after the Mormon Church was founded in upstate New York. Joseph Smith, the Prophet-founder, advocated freedom, education, and equal rights for blacks at a time when even most Abolitionists had no intention of "equal rights" for blacks. There are hundreds of thousands of black Mormons on earth today. Gladys Knight is a celebrity, and OF COURSE they're gonna use her, and she WANTS TO BE USED to share her testimony of Jesus and the Church.

The Black Mormon Homepage

http://www.angelfire.com/mo2
/blackmormon/homepage.html

There have been black Mormons since 1832; two years after the Mormon Church was founded in upstate New York. Joseph Smith, the Prophet-founder, advocated freedom, education, and equal rights for blacks at a time when even most Abolitionists had no intention of "equal rights" for blacks. There are hundreds of thousands of black Mormons on earth today. Gladys Knight is a celebrity, and OF COURSE they're gonna use her, and she WANTS TO BE USED to share her testimony of Jesus and the Church.

The Black Mormon Homepage

http://www.angelfire.com/mo2
/blackmormon/homepage.html

There have been black Mormons since 1832; two years after the Mormon Church was founded in upstate New York. Joseph Smith, the Prophet-founder, advocated freedom, education, and equal rights for blacks at a time when even most Abolitionists had no intention of "equal rights" for blacks. There are hundreds of thousands of black Mormons on earth today. Gladys Knight is a celebrity, and OF COURSE they're gonna use her, and she WANTS TO BE USED to share her testimony of Jesus and the Church.

The Black Mormon Homepage

http://www.angelfire.com/mo2
/blackmormon/homepage.html

All I want to say is to watch a video with the talk titled "The Church in Africa". It's available from the libraries in church meetinghouses (on Church Education Week videos). It is touching to see people as faithful, beautiful and joyful as these Latter Day Saints in Africa. I'm not of African descent, but it is something I will always remember. Because of their faithfulness through their hardships and trials these people were blessed with a spirit stronger than imaginable. It's worth a view.



Concerning how far up people with African descent can go in the church, they can be bishops or anything God has a need for them to be. But just remember this one thing. The purpose of the church is to bring us mortals into the presence of God. The farthest you could get in the church would be to become as close as possible to God. That's the hardest thing were here on earth to learn to do. That's the soul purpose why were here. Often it's the humblest of people that are the closest to Heavenly Father.



I know those people in Africa had more abundance in holiness, worthiness, spirit and joy than most people living here in North America where there is an abundance of worldly distractions and much pride. In fact, they were as beautiful and Christ-like as any people I've ever observed in my life.



God strengthens us to meet our trials. If we will examine them close enough (sometimes this will only be fully recognised in the hereafter) we will find that they are really blessings and opportunities to grow, to learn, and to overcome and prove faithful.



It may also be of worth to study the pioneers of the church and how God dealt with them. For the most part they all had lives full of troubles and suffering, but nevertheless they were happy because they felt love, joy and peace beyond understanding. In order gain the faith needed to accomplish what they were required to do, they were often humbled and suffered much. As they obeyed the Lord they were strengthened in their trials and grew stronger and more able to endure what lay ahead in their futures.



Can people of African descent go up in the church? I say a resounding YES! From what some endured in the past on this continent, and the wisdom I feel from them because of the strength it took to deal with their hardships, I know the Lord is ready to bless them wonderfully in the church if they will turn their hearts to Him. I know that faith is the key. Can they become as spiritually blessed as any people on this earth, and reach that closeness to God we all yearn for? Why certainly! God says He loves all His children, and when He says that He means that. God does not lie. It's all a matter of having faith in that. We all need to learn that. In fact, that is where joy and peace reside (in learning to trust in God's arms and have faith in Him with our own individual hardships, weaknesses, etc).



Joy and peace are often on the other side of hardship, we all need to find our own faith, our own strength and our own love that overcomes all through the Lord, Jesus Christ. We all have different circumstances, but we are all here for the same purpose (to come closer to God) and we are all here to bless each other with our unique gifts and talents of wisdom, love, spirit, understanding, faith, insight, diligence, longsuffering, patience and so on...



Watch the video and see what you think.



Catherine



Alberta, Canada

To clarify, this term "Neophyte" (properly spelled "Nephite") has absolutely nothing to do with any class system within the church, or anything at all to do with African-Americans, or the priesthood and how "high" someone could go in it.



There have been men of African decent in higher positions than 'bishop', and any worthy male priesthood holder can be a bishop, or higher within the church... providing he WANTS the job! ::wink::

The Evidence of any people of color or "Nephites" is in The Quorum of the Seventies: if you will look at the official website for the church you will see there are preistood holders of all nationalities in office.

www.lds.org

They filed the following rebuttal to the above Rip-Off Report:



Their email: Amarantha@mail2gemini.com

Their name: Amarantha



Their relationship to the company: Consumer Suggestion



Rebuttal:

I know there are Black Mormons..even Native Americans. But how high up do they really go? And have you noticed that every racist faith has a trophy African American to prove they are good and no longer the racists that they were? Out of thierteen different Mormon churches here in my town...there is only one black mormon,and he is swapped between all 13 wards and the Bishops use his mere exsistance as a testament to the faith

whenever the word "racism" is used against Mormons. (His existance doesn't make the words in the Mormon Bible dissappear.)

According to this "colored Mormon" he has been in the church for over thirty years. BUT he is still a "Neophyte." Appearently, if your not white or a "generational" you can never be a "Bishop". Sure, they will let you into the church but you will never achieve any hierarchy within. Sounds like the Fundamentals of slavery in the 1800's are still alive today.

They filed the following rebuttal to the above Rip-Off Report:



Their email: Amarantha@mail2gemini.com

Their name: Amarantha



Their relationship to the company: Consumer Suggestion



Rebuttal:

I know there are Black Mormons..even Native Americans. But how high up do they really go? And have you noticed that every racist faith has a trophy African American to prove they are good and no longer the racists that they were? Out of thierteen different Mormon churches here in my town...there is only one black mormon,and he is swapped between all 13 wards and the Bishops use his mere exsistance as a testament to the faith

whenever the word "racism" is used against Mormons. (His existance doesn't make the words in the Mormon Bible dissappear.)

According to this "colored Mormon" he has been in the church for over thirty years. BUT he is still a "Neophyte." Appearently, if your not white or a "generational" you can never be a "Bishop". Sure, they will let you into the church but you will never achieve any hierarchy within. Sounds like the Fundamentals of slavery in the 1800's are still alive today.

They filed the following rebuttal to the above Rip-Off Report:



Their email: Amarantha@mail2gemini.com

Their name: Amarantha



Their relationship to the company: Consumer Suggestion



Rebuttal:

I know there are Black Mormons..even Native Americans. But how high up do they really go? And have you noticed that every racist faith has a trophy African American to prove they are good and no longer the racists that they were? Out of thierteen different Mormon churches here in my town...there is only one black mormon,and he is swapped between all 13 wards and the Bishops use his mere exsistance as a testament to the faith

whenever the word "racism" is used against Mormons. (His existance doesn't make the words in the Mormon Bible dissappear.)

According to this "colored Mormon" he has been in the church for over thirty years. BUT he is still a "Neophyte." Appearently, if your not white or a "generational" you can never be a "Bishop". Sure, they will let you into the church but you will never achieve any hierarchy within. Sounds like the Fundamentals of slavery in the 1800's are still alive today.