What if Mormon Missionaries Were Honest About Their Beliefs?

British court summons Mormon head on fraud allegations related to church doctrine

A British magistrate has issued an extraordinary summons to the worldwide leader of the Mormon church alleging that its teachings about mankind amount to fraud.

Thomas S. Monson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been ordered to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London next month to defend the church’s doctrines including beliefs about Adam and Eve and Native Americans.

A formal summons signed by District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe warns Mr Monson, who is recognised by Mormons as God’s prophet on Earth, that a warrant for his arrest could be issued if he fails to make the journey from Salt Lake City, Utah, for a hearing on March 14.

In one of the most unusual documents ever issued by a British court, it lists seven teachings of the church, including that Native Americans are descended from a family of ancient Israelites as possible evidence of fraud. 

Read the rest here.

Mormons on the Web Grapple With Doubt

In the small but cohesive Mormon community where he grew up, Hans Mattsson was a solid believer and a pillar of the church. He followed his father and grandfather into church leadership and finally became an “area authority” overseeing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout Europe.

When fellow believers in Sweden first began coming to him with information from the Internet that contradicted the church’s history and teachings, he dismissed it as “anti-Mormon propaganda,” the whisperings of Lucifer. He asked his superiors for help in responding to the members’ doubts, and when they seemed to only sidestep the questions, Mr. Mattsson began his own investigation.

But when he discovered credible evidence that the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, was a polygamist and that the Book of Mormon and other scriptures were rife with historical anomalies, Mr. Mattsson said he felt that the foundation on which he had built his life began to crumble.

Read the rest here.

Near 1 in 5 say they will not vote for a Mormon

PRINCETON, NJ -- Eighteen percent of Americans say they would not vote for a well-qualified presidential candidate who happens to be a Mormon, virtually the same as the 17% who held this attitude in 1967.

Read the rest here.

Feds Sue Towns Dominated By Polygamous Cult

The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit against two towns dominated by a polygamous sect on Thursday, accusing officials of failing to protect nonmembers and enforcing the edicts of leader Warren Jeffs above the law.

The complaint filed in Arizona’s U.S. District Court accuses the twin towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, of "operating as an arm of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," for at least 20 years. It marks a departure for the federal government, which has until now steered clear of filing cases against FLDS members.

There are nearly two dozen allegations in the lawsuit, many involving the police agency the towns share. The earliest incident dates back to 2000, when attorneys say Colorado City town marshals confronted a sect member in an attempt to return an underage bride to her husband’s home after she fled.

Other accusations include police helping euthanize the town’s dogs at Jeffs’ order, keeping a woman in jail overnight on an inaccurate underage alcohol charge and threatening arrest of non-FLDS children if they continued to play at a city park.

The lawsuit also accuses town water and power utilities of refusing to provide housing permits and utility hookups to nonmembers or to allow them to move into homes.

Read the rest here.

Ex-Mormon wants to give Romney a headache

SALT LAKE CITY — Mitt Romney has major headaches named Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.

This month, he also had Helen Radkey.

At 1:55 p.m. on Feb. 8, Radkey, an excommunicated Mormon who spends her days combing through databases at the church’s Family History Library, ­e-mailed Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, named for the famed Nazi-hunter.

“FYI, discovered today: Posthumous baptisms for the parents of Simon Wiesen­thal,” Radkey wrote. “I am collecting evidence, which will be e-mailed to you, if requested, as long as there is a public stink.”

The Wiesenthal Center obliged, and a week later, Radkey followed with the revelation that Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor, was also listed in the private Mormon databases as “ ‘ready’ for posthumous rites.” This appeared to be a violation of the spirit of the Mormon agreement with Jewish groups not to posthumously baptize Holocaust victims and led to Wiesel’s public appeal to Romney to demand that his church stick to its word. All the reports credited Radkey, an independent researcher in Salt Lake City, as the force behind the revelations.

Radkey, an eccentric and familiar face at the church’s sprawling genealogical archive here, has a knack for notoriety.

Read the rest here.

Anne Frank, a Mormon?

At an appearance at George Washington University here Saturday night, Bill Maher bounded into territory that the news media have been gingerly tiptoeing around.

Magic underwear. Baptizing dead people. Celestial marriages. Private planets. Racism. Polygamy.

“By any standard, Mormonism is more ridiculous than any other religion,” asserted the famously nonbelieving comic who skewered the “fairy tales” of several faiths in his documentary “Religulous.” “It’s a religion founded on the idea of polygamy. They call it The Principle. That sounds like The Prime Directive in ‘Star Trek.’ ”

He said he expects the Romney crowd — fighting back after Robert Jeffress, a Texas Baptist pastor supporting Rick Perry, labeled Mormonism a non-Christian “cult” — to once more “gloss over the differences between Christians and Mormons.”

Maher was not easy on the religion he was raised in either. He referred to the Roman Catholic Church as “an international child sex ring.”

But atheists, like Catholics and evangelical Christians, seem especially wary of Mormons, dubbed the “ultimate shape-shifters” by Maher.

Read the rest here.

Not a fan of either Dowd or Maher.  But as the old saying goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Pastor supporting Perry says Romney is not a Christian, belongs to a 'cult'

WASHINGTON — The pastor who introduced Texas Gov. Rick Perry at a conservative gathering Friday said rival presidential candidate Mitt Romney is not a Christian and is in a cult because he is a Mormon.

Read the rest here.

Umm yea. But sometimes tact would suggest passing over certain observations, especially if your trying to plug a guy for president, true though they may be.  On a side note, I'd be a little surprised if  this guy didn't feel the same way about Catholics and Orthodox Christians (assuming he has even heard of us).

Polygamist Warren Jeffs Gets Life In Prison

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl he took as a bride in what his church deemed a "spiritual marriage."

The head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints also received a 20-year sentence for the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl.

He stood quietly Tuesday as the decision of the Texas jury was read. He received the maximum sentence on both counts. They are to be served consecutively.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said the 55-year-old will be eligible for parole in 35 years.

Prosecutors had asked the jury for the life sentence after presenting their painstaking and sometimes graphic case, and rejected Jeffs' contention that he was being persecuted for his religious beliefs.

"The evidence in this case shows that this isn't a prosecution of a people," prosecutor Eric Nichols said in his closing argument. "This is a prosecution to protect people."

Read the rest here.

At BYU Honor Code is Taken Seriously

When the sophomore center Brandon Davies was dismissed from Brigham Young’s third-ranked basketball team on Tuesday for violating the university’s honor code, it dealt a hard blow to the championship aspirations of the Cougars. But it also highlighted one of the big differences between B.Y.U. and other universities involved in major college sports.

Many colleges have honor codes, but they typically focus on protecting academic integrity and discouraging behavior that harms others. The United States Military Academy’s Cadet Honor Code states that “a cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” Many universities follow that example.

At B.Y.U., owned and operated privately by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the honor code is separate from the academic honesty policy, and is more closely linked to the personal-behavior tenets of the Mormon church.

There are precise guidelines regarding grooming, clothing, chastity and language. There are restrictions against the use of tobacco, alcohol, tea and coffee. There are precise visitation rules for resident halls and off-campus housing. (“The use of the bathroom areas by members of the opposite sex is not appropriate unless emergency or civility dictates otherwise, and then only if the safety, privacy, and sensitivity of other residents are not jeopardized,” reads the off-campus housing policy.) Gambling and “involvement with pornographic, erotic, indecent, or offensive material” are forbidden. So is “homosexual behavior.”

The B.Y.U. Honor Code “aligns with the core principles and mission of the university, and certainly the sponsoring church,” Carri Jenkins, a university spokeswoman, said. It applies to all of the roughly 34,000 students, whether they are Mormon or not. More than 98 percent of them are.

In college sports, B.Y.U. has always played by some different rules. It declines to play games on Sundays, which forces schedulers of the coming N.C.A.A. basketball tournament, for example, to place the Cougars in specific brackets. Most B.Y.U. students are Mormon and interrupt their studies and athletic careers with two-year missions, which detractors say can give them an edge in maturity and size.

Read the rest here.

When liberals attack Mormons

Should 'Magic Underwear' Disqualify a Presidential Candidate?

COMMENTARY | At CPAC, Mitt Romney underscored President Obama's shortcomings, describing him as a "weak president." Romney hasn't announced candidacy for the presidency of the U.S. but his CPAC speech last week officially signaled it was open season.

Amid largely insincere calls for "civil discourse" in politics, 2012 promises to be just the opposite. The Internet, a double-edged sword often wielded anonymously, carries dark messages which sometimes bubble to the media surface.

The same internet that bristles with the "news" that President Obama is a Muslim tells us that Mitt Romney wears "magic underwear." If there were such a thing, I would be a customer. You can be sure Neiman-Marcus would offer a stylish version.

We are so often counseled to be tolerant of Muslims, that our minds go blank at the notion that there may be intolerance of Jews, Mormons, Hindus, Zoroastrians and other religions. Were anyone today to disparage Muslim undergarments, there would be major condemnation from all quarters.

The U.S. Chief of Staff, Mike Mullen, could be first to speak out. Mullen reproached Americans in 2009, saying our outreach to Muslims was ineffective.

Read the rest here.

Yes, Mormonism is a pagan cult

I don't really spend much time addressing Mormonism or other weird pseudo Christian cults on here, but sometimes what should be obvious does bear repeating. Mormonism is a polytheist pagan cult. See Owen's post.

Mormons Baptize Obama's Mother (she's been dead for 14 yrs)

President Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who died in 1995, was baptized posthumously into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last year during her son's campaign, according to Salt Lake City-based researcher Helen Radkey.

The ritual, known as "baptism for the dead," was done June 4, 2008, in the Provo Utah temple, and another LDS temple rite, known as the "endowment," was performed in the same temple on June 11, said Radkey, who found the record while doing research in the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Read the rest here.