Magic?

Everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect. 

That said, if you were god and you were going to trust bringing back your church, would you trust such an important job to someone who believes in magic? Would you trust that important job to someone who had been convicted of treasure seeking?  Would you trust someone who had been convicted of conning people out of money by telling them treasure can be found on their property through seer stones? Then, those same seer stones are put in a hat and used to translate a magical book?  Even according to the church records, this is what happened:  http://byulaw.blogspot.com/2005/09/joseph-smiths-arrest-records-found.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzKm7rBhTBQ

Now, the modern day church shows photos of Joseph looking at golden plates and then translating them. However, all first hand reports say he actually put those same seer stones he used for treasure hunting into a hat and that is how we have the BofM today: (church friendly sources)

http://latterdaycommentary.blogspot.com/2008/04/seer-stone-in-hat-book-of-mormon.html

http://mormonstories.org/top10toughissues/peepstones.html

http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon266.htm

http://www.mrm.org/translation

The question remains, then, why does the modern day church go out of its way do deceive its members? It depicts Joseph as using gold plates to translate the BofM through photos and stories when in fact there is no documentation to support this.

Joseph was convicted of treasure seeking.

Joseph believed in magic stones long before the advent of the mormon church.

It is time the believing member were made aware of these facts. 

The Irony

From the time I was a teenager, I have been curious about learning all things mormon. There were two things that troubled me. I didn't understand the mysteries contained in the Bible; and the temple. I became obsessed with understanding.  I felt that my eternal salvation depended on understanding the symbolism in the temple and the Bible, especially the book of Revelation.

As a teen, I even read parts of a book called Mormonism and Masonry. I didn't really understand it, however, since I hadn't been through the temple and I didn't understand what Masonry was, at the time.

I obsessed about going through the temple, wanting all things that god had to offer.  After going through, I wanted nothing more to do with it, thinking it bizarre and cult like.  I didn't understand it.  I was told that I wasn't *worthy* enough to understand all of its symbolism.  I was told that, 'all would be revealed upon my righteousness.' I then tried to live in a way to make me worthy.

I studied the scriptures voraciously.  I read the bible, the BofM, the PofGP, multiple times. I read commentaries on all of them.  I found stuff on the internet.  I found stuff written by other religions.  I attended other religions, hoping that all knowledge would open my eyes. I spent hundreds of dollars on books to help my understanding.

 I tried to live the most righteous life I possibly could. I accepted each calling, even when these callings didn't fall in line with what my patriarchal blessing said these callings should be (my blessing said I would be a leader of other women, that I would rise to great heights of leadership; few of the callings I received, however fit into this category).  I questioned everything.  I researched, I studied, I prayed, I did all these things in an effort to understand the mystery of the temple and the Book of Revelation.

I believed the mormon scriptures that said that all knowledge is of god, that if we seek after good things, it was a good thing.  The more I searched, the more confused I was.  I found out that the way the Bible was put together was not how I was taught in church.  It was very fascinating, but not necessarily inspired by god.  I found out that the Greek and Roman and previous gods that were worshiped by other nations had a great influence on the Jews and eventually the religion that became the Christians. I discovered that there were many, many books that could have been included in the Bible.  I found out the books in the NT were not written by the men that carry their names.  The most recent research on the Book of Revelation is the most fascinating.  Its author concludes that it wasn't meant to be an end-of-days book about our time, but a political commentary about the Roman government and about the time period it was written in.  Of course, this only makes sense, once a person is able to step back and be objective.    http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/03/05/120305crbo_books_gopnik?currentPage=all   Elaine Pagel, The Book of Revelation

I found out that Joseph Smith and nearly all of the early leaders in the mormon church were Masons. I found out that all the symbols on the Nauvoo and Salt Lake Temple are not religious symbols, but Masonic symbols. I didn't need to look at anti- sources for this, but to mormon sources:

The History of the Church records Smith's entrance into the Masonic lodge in 1842:

"Tuesday, 15.—I officiated as grand chaplain at the installation of the Nauvoo Lodge of Free Masons, at the Grove near the Temple. Grand Master Jonas, of Columbus, being present, a large number of people assembled on the occasion. The day was exceedingly fine; all things were done in order, and universal satisfaction was manifested. In the evening I received the first degree in Free Masonry in the Nauvoo Lodge, assembled in my general business office." (History of the Church, by Joseph Smith, Deseret Book, 1978, Vol.4, Ch.32, p.550-1)

The next day Smith recorded:

"Wednesday, March 16.—I was with the Masonic Lodge and rose to the sublime degree." (History of the Church, Vol.4, Ch.32, p.552)

The Mormon involvement in Freemasonry reached its heights during the early 1840's in Nauvoo. In the Encyclopedia of Mormonism we read:

"The introduction of Freemasonry in NAUVOO had both political and religious implications....Eventually nearly 1,500 LDS men became associated with Illinois Freemasonry, including many members of the Church's governing priesthood bodies—this at a time when the total number of non-LDS Masons in Illinois lodges barely reached 150." (Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vol.2, p.527)

I learned that the Kirkland temple was vastly different in design, worship and openness than the Nauvoo temple.  Why?  This is a question that will never be answered by mormon leadership.  Why? Because it means opening up dirty little secrets like polygamy:  http://www.i4m.com/think/temples/temple_legacy.htm
http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/masonicsymbolsandtheldstemple.htm

I learned that I was lied to.  God doesn't have secret handshakes to get us into heaven.  God doesn't require women to cover their faces to pray.  God doesn't require men to take women's hands to get women into heaven.  God doesn't require polygamy to get into heaven.  God doesn't require women to submit to men. God doesn't have an end-of-day plan written in secret-hard-to-interpret writings.


The irony:  My quest to seek further knowledge, wisdom, truth and spirituality lead me out of the mormon church. Only by leaving, did I find the truth.

Not of God?

I stopped believing in the infallibility of the leaders. I stopped attending the temple. I then stopped attending church on a regular basis. I stopped reading all the church publications.  I then stopped paying tithing.  Leaving was a process for me, not an event.

Part of me wanted to still believe. Part of me wanted to one day return, because I knew nothing else.  Then I saw a video on the Book of Abraham.  After that, I knew there was no going back. I knew it was all a fraud. I could not live a fraud.

Do you know what it means to publish peer reviewed articles and books?  "Peer Review is a process that journals use to ensure the articles they publish represent the best scholarship currently available. When an article is submitted to a peer reviewed journal, the editors send it out to other scholars in the same field (the author's peers) to get their opinion on the quality of the scholarship, its relevance to the field, its appropriateness for the journal, etc.

Publications that don't use peer review (Time, Cosmo, Salon) just rely on the judgement of the editors whether an article is up to snuff or not. That's why you can't count on them for solid, scientific scholarship.http://www.lib.utexas.edu/lsl/help/modules/peer.html

The mormon scholars do not use peer reviews to  establish articles, opinions, facts, etc. they publish on DNA, archaeology, BofM or PofGP research they publish.  Why is this important? Because it then cannot be verified or substantiated.  

"Robert K. Ritner is currently Professor of Egyptology at the Oriental Instituteof the University of Chicago and was from 1991-1996 the first Marilyn M. Simpson Assistant Professor of Egyptology at Yale University. Dr. Ritner specializes in Roman, Hellenistic, Late and Third Intermediate Period (Libyan and Nubian) Egypt and is the author of the book The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, and over 100 publications on Egyptian religion, magic, medicine, language and literature, as well as social and political history. He has lectured extensively on each of these topics throughout the United States, Europe and Egypt. In association with The Field Museum of Chicago, Dr. Ritner was the academic advisor to two recent British Museum exhibits “Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth,” and “Eternal Egypt,” and he has served as consultant and lecturer for the travelling Cairo Museum exhibit “Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt.”http://nelc.uchicago.edu/faculty/ritner

Why do I care about Robert Ritner's credentials?  Because he has this to say about the Book of Abraham:  Now, for the first time, the surviving papyri have been translated into English in their entirety. In analyzing and translating the ancient texts, Robert K. Ritner, foremost American scholar of Egyptology, has determined that they were prepared for deceased men and women in Thebes during the Greco-Roman period. They have nothing to do with Abraham, Joseph, or a planet called Kolob, as Smith had claimed.  http://signaturebooks.com/2012/02/scholar-says-mormon-scripture-not-an-egyptian-translation/

He also has this to say, "“Except for those willfully blind,” writes Professor Ritner of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, “the case is closed.” In his new book, The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition, he also accuses two scholars of Egyptology at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University of borrowing and distorting his own writings in trying to defend Smith’s interpretations as authentically translated Egyptian."  http://signaturebooks.com/2012/02/scholar-says-mormon-scripture-not-an-egyptian-translation/

So it remains, if the Book of Abraham is not a translation from Joseph Smith, then how can he possibly be a prophet of god?