3 Meetings with an LDS General Authority, 2012/2013 ~ Grant H. Palmer

Reblogged from journeyofloyaldissent:

The following very interesting memorandum was received on 5th April 2013 from Grant H. Palmer, and  is shared here with his permission.

Grant is a renowned LDS historian, and is author of "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins", which is referred to in the following memorandum. Further details of that book may be found here:

http://signaturebooks.com/2010/02/an-insiders-view-of-mormon-origins-2/

Three Meetings with a LDS General Authority, 2012- 2013…

Read more… 1,232 more words

This blog post purports to be written by Grant Palmer, and discloses some rather damning insight into the current General Authorities and their beliefs toward the truthfulness of Mormonism and the historicity of the Book of Mormon. While this blog post does align with statements made by Grant Palmer at the 2012 ExMormon Foundation Conference, which I attended, I'd be grateful if someone could help to authenticate this post and it's claims!

Superstition, Rationality, and the Merits of Religion: A Facebook Debate

Last month, I was engaged in yet another Facebook debate — this time with an old work colleague of mine, who’s non-LDS. It turned out to be a great example of the kind of debate in which I wish I could engage my family and close friends, since I found it to be both intellectually challenging and amicable. Unfortunately these days, my family and friends rarely engage me in anything other than idle chit-chat, fearing that I’ll bring something up that will make them “uncomfortable”; but I digress.

The debate started off discussing whether irrationality and/or superstition is a requirement to do others harm; branched into a debate on whether Hitler was a theist or not; then came to a comparison of definitions of religion & other philosophies.

With permission from the other parties, I have decided to include the entire debate below; I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

[Note: due to Facebook's limited abilities, I've taken the liberty of re-formatting the text of the debate for my blog. I've modified paragraph & line breaks, fixed typos, added emphasis, etc. Other than this, the debate remains unedited in terms of content. I've also colour-coded each speaker to make it easier to follow the conversation: I (Tom) am red, Travis is blue, and Jason is green.]

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Review: An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins

An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins by Grant H. Palmer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, by Grant H. Palmer, is a solid overview of the documented facts surrounding Joseph Smith Jr., the Book of Mormon, and the beginnings of the Mormon religion. With Palmer being a practicing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a three-time director of the LDS Institutes of Religion, a former LDS seminary teacher, and a member of the Mormon History Association, I was fully expecting his book to be an apologetic view of Mormon origins, which I’m pleased to say was not the case. Palmer lays out a very well researched and referenced exposé of the foundational aspects of Mormonism that would make any ‘anti-Mormon’ proud.

Review: Tell it All, A Woman’s Life in Polygamy

Tell it All: A Woman’s Life in Polygamy by Fanny Stenhouse
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Tell It All is the heartbreaking autobiography of Fanny Stenhouse. Her story begins with her as a young woman returning home to England, after spending some time in France, to discover that her family had converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While investigating her family’s new-found faith, she became the object of one of the Elders’ affections. They were soon married and subsequently ‘counseled’ to serve a mission for the Church while in impoverished conditions. It was only after years of whispered rumours (and public denials by apostles) of polygamy being practiced among their American counterparts, that Joseph Smith’s polygamic ‘revelation’ was finally disclosed in England. Her adventures only truly began when she and her husband were later ‘counseled’ to emigrate to the ‘promised land’ of Utah, where she learned, first-hand, the detrimental effects of Brigham Young’s institutionalized polygamy.

My Contribution to Exposing The Mormon Delusion

Zina D. H. Young

A few weeks ago, while I was reading Jim Whitefield’s The Mormon Delusion Vol 1, I double-checked a claim that the author had made regarding the Church’s official website. On pages 132-3 of TMDv1 (2011 PDF edition), Whitefield had noted that, in 2006, the Church’s biographical sketch of Zina D. H. Young grossly misrepresented history and established facts. After Whitefield had pointed out the ‘error’, the Church deleted the offending sentence – which Whitefield notes in the updated edition (I read the latest 3rd edition).

I wanted to check for myself what the current wording of the biographical sketch was, so I did a quick google search of  Zina Young site:LDS.org. Sure enough, I quickly found the revised bio, just as Whitefield said. However, in the search results, I also found a link to a Relief Society Presidents poster which still contained the original biographical sketch! There I had it, proof that the LDS Church had not only rewritten history to mislead people, but that they had deleted the misrepresentation once it was discovered!

Once I realized that I had clear before-and-after copies of the Church’s official biographical sketch of Zina D. H. Young, I contacted Jim Whitefield to let him know.

Below is Jim Whitefield’s official September 2011 update containing my contribution. Click here for the original source.