Archive for the ‘book of mormon’ Category

Christopher Hitchens Excoriates Joseph Smith and Mormonism in Slate Article and Book — “god is not Great”

Friday, April 27th, 2007

Ouch! From Christopher Hitchens’ latest Slate article, and new book. This guy supports the Iraq war and George Bush, and hates Mormonism. I don’t quite get it.

A question/challenge to my readers (which reminds me of this post from last year): in spite of the venom, what percentage of this essay is actually historically/factually accurate, vs. incorrect? After reading the article, I’m guessing around 60%.

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Subject: Mormonism: A Racket Becomes a Religion
Posted Friday, April 27, 2007, at 7:23 AM ET

If the followers of the prophet Muhammad hoped to put an end to any future “revelations” after the immaculate conception of the Koran, they reckoned without the founder of what is now one of the world’s fastest-growing faiths. And they did not foresee (how could they, mammals as they were?) that the prophet of this ridiculous cult would model himself on theirs. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—hereafter known as the Mormons—was founded by a gifted opportunist who, despite couching his text in openly plagiarized Christian terms, announced that “I shall be to this generation a new Muhammad” and adopted as his fighting slogan the words, which he thought he had learned from Islam, “Either the Al-Koran or the sword.” He was too ignorant to know that if you use the word al you do not need another definite article, but then he did resemble Muhammad in being able only to make a borrowing out of other people’s bibles.

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Posted in Joseph Smith, LDS, Mitt Romney, Mormon, Mormons, Politics, Romney, book of mormon, mitt | 11 Comments »

Are LDS Missionaries (and Members) Prepared to Respond to This? — Jesus / Joseph Smith , The Translator

Thursday, April 5th, 2007

There is nothing new (to me, anyway) in this video (factually speaking).

However, what’s interesting or of note to me with this is:

  • It seems to stick pretty close to the facts/truth regarding Mormon history, which is almost laudable for anti-Mormon publications.
  • It tells the BOM/translation story in a fairly accessible way, that can be easily understood by the average person (Mormon or non-Mormon)
  • To me, it does a fairly effective job of highlighting the issues w/ the historical facts (why preserve plates to have them not be used in the translation?)
  • Most importantly (to me), it provides effective visuals (in video) of Joseph engaging in the “head in the hat with stone” method of translation.

My big question/concern is this: are we adequately equipping our members, and most importantly, our missionaries – to deal with this narrative? Do we know what the official response is or should be to the big chasm between what we all were/are taught, and what the facts convey?

I really, really wish the church would provide some official material to equip us to handle this issue. Missionaries and average members are going to be assaulted with this stuff in the future — and we need guidance (I feel) on how to answer the narrative.

Posted in LDS, Mormon, Mormons, book of mormon, joseph, missionaries, smith, translation | 9 Comments »