All The Reasons We Won't Return to Mormonism
Reason #39: Because dissent or questions were stifled in Mormonism from the very beginning
In the formative years of the LDS Church, any revelation received by church members was only considered valid if it was approved by Joseph Smith, because any revelation that contradicted Joseph"'s just couldn"'t be true. It pains me to think how the Spirit of God was...
Reason #38: The Situation of Those Who First Heard the Mormon “Gospel”
I have often wondered how I would have responded, had I been an adult in New England in the early 1830"'s. Part of me wants to believe that Bible knowledge would have kept me from believing the story of the gold plates. The New Testament warned against people who...
Reason #37: The manipulative quality of Joseph Smith's “Revelations”
One of the most amazing (and least-noticed) revelations he gave out is that found in DoctrineandCovenants Section 15. The heading to the revelation states: "The message is intimately and impressively personal in that the Lord tells of what was known only to...
Reason #36: Joseph Smith Joined Another Church After Saying He Was Forbidden by God
On June 15, 1828"”years after his supposed visit from God who told him that all churches on earth were corrupt -- he tried to join the Methodist Church. Even the esteemed LDS writer Hyrum L. Andrus admitted that Joseph became a Methodist, but ignores the...
Reason #35: The Gold Plates Never Existed
One LDS author, Dan Vogel in American Apocrypha:Essays on the Book of Mormon stated: "Given the fact that the three witnesses saw a vision and that the experience of the eight witnesses seems to have been similarly visionary, there is no compelling...
Reason #34: Unreliability of Book of Mormon Witnesses
Many Mormons seek solace in the thought that there were enough reliable witnesses to substantiate the Book of Mormon"'s validity and justify their own faith in it. But just how reliable were these witnesses? Mormons often claim that none of them ever denied their...