For the first 30 years of my life, I was exposed to "anti-Mormons" on many different occasions. As a true believing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it was incredibly easy to laugh off these pathetic attempts at swaying me from the One True Church.
My reasoning went something like this, "If these people are the best and brightest that the anti-Mormon movement has to offer, and these are their best arguments to be made, I must absolutely be on the right path!"
A classic, and all to common, example of this is here. Yes, it goes on for 4 minutes. And yes, I kept waiting for it to improve. And no, *sigh*, it doesn't get any better.
There are also people with signs like these.
Notice these pictures and video came from the fairlds.org website. Why would a Pro Mormon organization willingly post Anti Mormon messages on their website?! The answer is obvious. These messages only strengthen the resolve and testimony of members of the Mormon church. When you believe you have the truth, and these are the images and messages telling you the Church is false, it only reinforces how right you are. Let's be honest, these people with their signs are nutcases.
As I look at things with a clearer understanding of how the Church does business, I can't help but wonder if the Church itself isn't actually involved in organizing these people, and possibly even paying them. I'm not the conspiracy theory type, but seriously, these guys are helping the Church!
It wasn't until many years into my life that I actually learned the real "anti Mormon" material. And by "anti-Mormon", I'm referring to the truth about the Church. I'm talking about the true history of the Church. Why was I never taught Joseph Smith had 34 wives? Why was I never taught he convinced 14 year-old girls to marry him? Why didn't a Gospel Doctrine teacher ever share with the class the story of Joseph marrying 11 women who already had living husbands of their own? Why doesn't the Church teach Joseph Smith "translated" the Book of Mormon by putting his face in his hat and looking at a stone he had previously used to search for buried treasure?
Why didn't anyone ever tell me about all the archaeological and historical evidence that clearly refutes the claim of the Book of Mormon to be a literal record of millions of Jews living on the American continent before Columbus arrived?
Why oh why did I never hear about The Book of Abraham and how it clearly proves Joseph Smith was a liar and had no translating abilities or gifts whatsoever?!?
These are things that would have been helpful 15 years ago, before I dedicated my life to a fraud and made almost all major life decisions while under a set of false assumptions. Sheesh, thanks for nothin' anti-Mormons!!
You see, there are many things, so very many things, the anti-Mormon crowd could be using for sign material. And maybe those things would not be so easily dismissed and ridiculed by faithful members of the church. I would like to see some anti-Mormons out there who actually say something that would cause a believing member of the Church to actually think.
I think this video here illustrates a pretty good attempt. I hope to see more of this.
With so much truth and facts and evidence to clearly debunk and contradict what members of the Church are taught, it's about time the anti-Mormon crowd get their act together and start actually educating the LDS church members. But it's not going to be effective as long as it's a guy with a bullhorn, screaming about the bible.
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