(Posted on a Pro Mormon site I used to engage in fruitlessly:)
The other thread I did is now locked. Perhaps this is what a few posters on this thread wanted to get out of me... Many heckled me offline as to how I had "no proof" that the church lied. I refrained from asnwering since I was in the middle of discussions with others... and providing my opinion as to how the church lies would have detracted or derailed the thread.
My explanation hereafter will likely be futile, but I can't just sit back and have it go unchecked. I am taking exception to the several posters guffawing about as if their LDS church has never told a significant lie. As if no deception has ever gone on. As if no fleecing ever takes place over the member's minds.
Let it be said that every church lies to it's members. It just happens in a philosopher king type fashion... you know, the higher upper echelon authority figures know the whole story but will not let the masses in on the authentic version for "their own good". Too many testimonies are at stake. I think that this should be seen as the litmus test of the Mormon faith. Rather than protect them, they should expose them. That which does not kill us makes us stronger. That The Bretheren feel they must insulate the Mormon masses from the real history belays the fragile nature of a Mormon testimony. I observe this because Mormon testimony is completely based on feelings. Feelings are a very weak premise to build a testimony on. I believe The Bretheren know this. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see it. In a way, they have no choice BUT to insulate the Mormon masses. The few that dare venture outside of the Mormon authority mandate to never delve into "evil" anti-mormon literature experience a high mortality rate to their testimony.
Those warnings from the pulpit are there for a reason.
So does the church lie or not? I have studied this out to the farthest ends and I am prepared to say that the Church does lie. These lies started with its founder, Joseph Smith. Which I can demonstrate.
There is a structured LDS Faithful History Policy taught over the pulpit. President Packer touched on its essence in his conference address, "The Mantle is Far Greater than the Intellect". Here Packer discusses how where some problematic items of church history are true they should not be taught. Also, I believe it was Hugh B Brown who thwacked the 70's Mormon mindset with "When the Bretheren speak, the thinking has been done". Suggesting that no others should go any farther than what The Bretehren say is so.
There is also Apostle Elder Oaks' off camera interviews re the Paul Toscano excommunication shuffle where, when caught in a corner via taped phone conversations, Oaks was forced to admit his lying.
Here is some more, though I admit it is not current, but I include it because it outlines the founding church member's willingness to distort and lie for the lord:
'The Mormon Hierarchy - Origins of Power' by Dr. D. Michael Quinn, Signature Books 1994.
pg. 88: "Smith remained aloof from civil office, but in November 1835 he announced a doctrine I [Mr. Quinn] call 'theocratic ethics'. He used this theology to justify his violation of Ohio's marriage laws by performing a marriage for Newel Knight and the undivorced Lydia Goldthwaithe without legal authority to do so... In addition to the bigamous character of this marriage, Smith had no license to perform marriages in Ohio.
Although that was the first statement of this concept, Smith and his associates put that theology into practice long before 1835, and long after. Two months later Smith performed marriage ceremonies for which neither he nor the couples had marriage licenses, and he issued marriage certificates "agreeable to the rules and regulations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Theocratic ethics justified LDS leaders and (by extension) regular Mormons in actions which were contrary to conventional ethics and sometimes in violation of criminal laws.
The Knight marriage was a public example of Joseph Smith's violation of laws and cultural norms regarding marriage and sexual behavior - the performance of civil marriages by legally unauthorized officiators, monogamous marriage ceremonies in which one or both partners were undivorced from legal spouses, polygamous marriage of a man with more than one living wife, his marriage proposals to females as young as twelve, his sexual relationships with polygamous wives as young as fourteen, polyandry of women with more than one husband, marriage and cohabitation with foster daughters, and Mormon marriages of first cousins, brother-sister, and uncle-niece.
Now, if having sexual relationships with teenagers and other men's wives is not a form of untruth...
Quinn continues: Other manifestations of Mormonism's theocratic ethics would soon begin in Kirkland and continue intermittently for decades - the official denials of actual events, the alternating condemnation and tolerance for counterfeiting and stealing from non-Mormons, threats and physical attacks against dissenters or other alleged enemies, the killing and castration of sex offenders, the killing of anti-Mormons, the bribery of government officials, and business ethics at odds with church standards."
References for the above:
Dallin H. Oaks, Apostle, "Gospel Teachings About Lying", Clark Memorandum BYU (Spring 1994 pg. 16-17). In this Oaks acknowledges 'Lying for the Lord' by early Mormon leaders. Joseph Smith lied about many of his activities and the overwhelming historical evidence forced Oaks to admit the lies. Among Mormons and former Mormons it has become known as "Lying for the Lord".
John Taylor - apostle and later a Mormon Prophet
There is a missionary tract (I do not have the exact source off hand but I have the reprint source cited below) telling of a debate in 1850 in England between then apostle John Taylor and a Protestant minister. The minister accused the Mormons of practicing polygamy. Here is how it went down:
Source: Sharon Banister, "For Any Latter-day Saint" page 288-298.
John Taylor says, in 1850: "We are accused here of polygamy, and actions the most indelicate, obscene, and disgusting, such than [sic] none but a corrupt and depraved heart could have contrived. These things are too outrageous to admit of belief; therefore ... I shall content myself by reading our views of chastity and marriage, from a work published by us, containing some of the articles of our Faith. 'Doctrine and Coventants,' page 330. [1850 version] ... Inasmuch as this Church of Jesus Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again..."
Mr. John Taylor, future prophet of the church was lying, as he had multiple polygamous wives waiting for him in Utah at that very moment.
This lie dovetails into how the church maintain polygamous practices post 1890 (post manifesto). They lied then and the church officials continue to misconstrue the historicity of polygamy even today.
Lastly, Joseph Smith himself lied in public printed publications about his his practicing of polygamy. One google search will bring that up. Something to the effect of "What a shame it is to be convicted of having more than one wife when I can only find one." At the time of that published Smith statement he had multiple wives. Smith eventually met his demise when he had the Nauvoo Expositor printing press destroyed. This Press was about to publish an expose on the various polygamous activities Smith and his inner cadre of supporters were involved with. Such information was going to be devestating to Joseph so he sought desperate measures to have its momentum impeded. His actions violated the United States Constitutional freedoms of Press. His actions enraged the non Members of Nauvoo who had grown weary with Mormon Block voting and Smith's 3000 man militia parading up and down the streets. Non members of Nauvoo felt threatened and helpless. This was the last straw. Smith was killed.
I suspect that a poster could respond to this thread with the age old standard responses, but if he digs and reads his Mormon history, he will find the lying. And for me, it was more than I could bear.
And by default, whenever the church authorities stand up and cite chapter and verse of any controversial historical claim, they too are lying for the lord.
This would include citing current Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenant passages. The lie is found in that the problematic versions found in the older original texts were revised to more unobtrusive status. I won't go into them. But the sanitized versions are now quoted with nary a reference to how it used to read. Also, any reference to the bogus facsimiles in the book of Abraham that depict Abraham about to be sacrificed by an idolatrous Egyptian priest, accountings of the first vision (which version? there are several contradictory versions) implicate the church lying. By whitewashing, revising, telling only the faith promoting spin of their history to the general membership, the church lies to me and to you.
Recall how a Mormon Apostle Mr. Holland eloquently outlined one of his conference addresses on "The Sins of Ommission" a few years back. Mormons were informed that by not doing or being a certain way, they were, by default, sinning. Well, if the shoe fits, my brother... by all means wear it.
It is not appreciated.
Noggin .
