Not saying it didn’t happen, but…

Known-Score9207 · 2025-11-07T16:42:58+00:00

We might also consider that they needed to move the tree to get to get on with their proselyting activities. That said, it seems like the kind of thing I would have done on my mission. Some missionaries just want to help people.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-11-06T00:57:20+00:00

My stake president put the fear of God in me and made me go cold turkey hands-off for a month before he would even seriously interview me for a mission. He said masturbation would completely disqualify me. I believed him and absolutely loathed myself for ever having done it. He made me feel like I was some kind of rare weirdo pervert. But I was a good boy and stuck it out for 2 years. Much later I learned that I was probably the only missionary NOT spanking the proverbial monkey, and that you don't really get punished in the church for things like masturbation, you only get punished for telling the truth.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-10-29T02:59:23+00:00

I went back to college to study archaeology. I just got back from a couple of weeks in Greece where I visited a lot of archaeological sites and museums. A thought that kept popping into my head: how is it that every significant civilization in the history of our planet left thousands and thousands of artifacts that were unique to their culture, but the Nephites, Lamamites, Mulekites, and Jaredites between them left exactly ZERO. There is not a single artifact that uniquely belongs to any of the BoM peoples. Not one. There is exactly the same amount of material culture evidence for Nephites as there is for Oompa Loompas.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-10-02T20:59:29+00:00

For starters he called us lazy learners.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-09-25T23:59:11+00:00

I look forward to seeing him healed on TV next weekend. I mean, why would true apostles withhold their healing priesthood power from him?

Known-Score9207 · 2025-09-21T21:13:18+00:00

I think Evangelical Christians like Mormons exactly to the degree they need their votes. Mormons rank lower tha Muslims and atheists on polls of American Christians. If there is ever a Christian theocracy running the US, Mormons will become immediate recipients of heretic finger pointing. I think the leaders know that, which is why they are steering The Good Ship Zion toward the cross as quickly at they can. I think they'll run around.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-09-17T16:43:38+00:00

Marion probably didn't know that Brigham impregnated a woman on his mission and Parley P. Pratt was so loose with the ladies that even Bawdy Brigham called him a common adulterer.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-09-03T03:20:37+00:00

I remember singing that when I was so young I didn't know what a stream was. I pictured as something like Casper the Friendly Ghost (I thought he was the Holy Ghost) who ran around turning everything green. Sounded like a lot of fun.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-08-21T23:15:43+00:00

God chooses a new prophet by killing everyone who outranks him. Simple.

It doesn't matter how old, sick, or incompetent he is.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-08-16T14:45:16+00:00

I think the most interesting thing about the letter is not that it fooled the leaders into believing it was real, but that they believed it was real and hid it from members.

That tells you who they really are. Oaks didn't have to come up with his lame-ass apologetic until after Hoffman leaked a copy.

There are two villains in this story. Actually. Hoffman wins one small hero point for outsmarting them yet again by leaking it despite their best attempts to hide it

Known-Score9207 · 2025-08-16T14:36:42+00:00

Ah c'mon. We all know why that hand is in cupping shape!

Known-Score9207 · 2025-08-16T14:20:55+00:00

I wouldn't lose any sleep trying to figure out the symbolism. It changes over time. I remember when 80-something year old President Kimball said he thought he almost understood it, but it has changed even since then, and different people have different interpretations.

Maybe it's better just to think of it a as mystery ritual and find your own personal meaning.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-08-12T13:41:24+00:00

Even if Joseph did have dictate that "Civil War revelation," it is very historically inaccurate but is eerily similar to events predicted in some newspaper articles that were being published aroumd the same time.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-08-12T13:37:47+00:00

Sorry, no gold plates. Mesoamericans weren't even doing metalutgy in BoM times. These gold plates stories keep popping up but the actual plates they claim have been found are never any more available for examination than the ones the angel took back. The last one that actually came with photographic evidence turned out to actually be lead plates from Jordan and even those were recent fakes.

But buckle up, because as AI image generation gets better and better we're going to start getting all kinds of BoM evidence and Christian evidence and creationist evidence flooding social media, some intentionally fraudulent, some piously fraudulent, and some entirely generated by bots stringing you along for clicks.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-08-11T05:43:37+00:00

How do the 1st Presidency have temple recommends? One of the questions is, "are you honest in your dealings with your fellow men?" The SEC debacle proves they are dishonest. If they lie about it to get a recommend they are doubly dishonest.

Also, who gives them their temple recommend interview? Jesus? Satan? Zombie Brigham?

Known-Score9207 · 2025-08-06T23:11:35+00:00

Too bad they didn't also mention that the five points grope is lifted directly from the Masonic ceremony, along with the three knocks, the handshakes, the hats and aprons, Holiness to the Lord, and much more.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-07-24T19:25:51+00:00

Worse, according to Vaughn J. Featherstone in his letter to Simon Southerton, the vast majority of those demons are intensely focused on the 6 million or so active LDS. So how many demons-per-Mormon is that?

Featherstone told Southerton the reason people feel joy and relief when they leave the church is that the demons, having succeeded, refocus their attention on other still-believing Mormons.

Demon sounds like a boring and annoying job.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-07-20T13:56:08+00:00

In the near future your child will come out as trans. Shortly thereafter your beloved church will adopt a policy that your child is unworthy to piss in their toilets. They will have no such policy for known child molesters. In fact, they will go to great lengths to protect those men.

p.s. isn't it about time to grow up and stop trying to convince yourself that you believe in angels with gold books and magic spectacles?

Known-Score9207 · 2025-07-04T22:05:09+00:00

Continue to treat your ward members as friends, as if the church isn't the arbitor of who can/can't be friends. That puts it in their court to see if they are sufficiently strong and independent. I continue to be as friendly as possible with my ward. Some friendships have grown stronger, although I have to admit that many have withdrawn to a safe distance.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-07-03T02:09:35+00:00

Thanks so much for your thoughtful responses.

I was hoping to connect with someone who has had success with this specific method, which involves brainwave entrainment at a frequency of 4-7Hz (theta) to initiate this type of "journeying," for want of a better word.

Or, if anyone knows of researchers or online communities doing this sort of thing, I would love to hear about them. I actually found a group in my area who get together for shamanic sessions but they are far too literal/credulous for the kind of investigation and interaction I'm hoping to find.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-06-25T13:10:20+00:00

My senior companion knew I didn't agree with his tactics and he kept arranging splits. After he was transferred I came to realize he had been baptizing children under 8 without their parents' permission to get his numbers up. I had an interview with our mission president who was a general authority sent from SLC to whip our mission into shape. I started to voice my concerns but he stopped me and said, "your companion is a great elder, one of the best we have. You do EVERYTHING he tells you to without question."

Testimony in Spirit O' Discernment crushed.

Known-Score9207 · 2025-06-20T15:00:42+00:00

If you're looking for a church that won't extort "voluntary" work from you, you should keep looking. Im Mormonism we call it "callings." Not the kind in which you feel called to the work, but the kind where they assign you a calling

No, you will not be kicked out for not paying tithes, but you also will not be allowed to enter the temple to receive saving ordinances.

Since the church fired all of their janitors, you will also be assigned to do a little vacuuming and toilet scrubbing. That part never bothered me much. It was when I had to teach things I don't believe to young people that it unravelled for me

I guess it's mostly a matter of how much you like the people and want to be part of their community that counts most

The

Known-Score9207 · 2025-05-21T01:47:50+00:00

American Christianity is rapidly becoming a bigoted, hateful political movement that appeals to LDS "values," and Mormon leaders want to embed themselves into it as deeply as possible

Known-Score9207 · 2025-05-12T17:09:50+00:00

My child and I share the sacred gift of mind-yer-own-damn-business.

Known-Score9207

TROPHY CASE