No more "Prophets for Profits"

You know, at some point I really ought to just stop looking for "free" answers from anyone resembling or pretending to be a prophet.

Every time I think I might have found some site or book that could help me understand what God wants me to know or do with my life, I am asked to "donate" or give money to their particular cause; in other words, all of these self-proclaimed "prophets" are out to make a profit from their "inside" knowledge.

I blame my bad (as in "incorrect") upbringing in that falsest of all modern religions, the Mormon Church, for my fixation on wanting to believe that some mortal has answers for these impending dark days in America, but I am consistently as disappointed in these new sources as I am with Joseph Smith's lies.

The latest gaff I made was thinking a book called "The Harbinger" by one Jonathan Cahn might contain some of the answers to my queries about God. The book made some really great connections between Isaiah's prophecies about the fall of ancient Israel and modern day America, and I was anxious to learn more. I went to Cahn's "Hope of the World" (what a great and promising-sounding site!) hoping to get some direction, inspiration, hope and so on. I really hoped that perhaps Cahn really had been communicating with God and that he would let the rest of us know what the heck was going on. But sadly, as with other false leaders, I went to the author of this book's web site and - sure enough- he was asking for donations and would not share his complete "messages" with me without me first making a donation.

What the heck? I'd already paid $14 to buy the book; what was going on?

Did Moses stand in front of the downtrodden children of Israel and say, "Yes, I got a calling from God to come deliver you ... but first, a word from our sponsor" and then maybe his brother Aaron (his mouthpiece) steps forward, leaning on his staff, and says, "My brother Moses said God has asked that I pass a bushel basket around and only those who put their two shekels in can hang around and hear the rest of the deliverance message. If you can't afford the price, please head on back to the mud pits. Thank you for coming, and good luck digging your way to the promised land!"

Really? Think about it. What TRUE PROPHET OF GOD ALMIGHTY is going to charge admission to a divine revelation? Are you getting my drift here? Obviously, a true prophet does not, cannot, and WILL NOT make a profit off of revelations.

So, although the "Harbinger" author makes some great points, he does not practice what he preaches. He made a web site and delivers the message only to the shekel payers, and I'm all "shekeled out." It is for this same reason that I eschew any and ALL organized religions, especially the LDS church in which I was raised, because I saw the faces of the poor being ground into the earth; I heard the snide remarks about "well, if you were really living a righteous life, you would be blessed with not only children but the money to care for them, and care for them very well!"

But I saw the same money changing going on in every other church as well. I shrank from the passing platter in both Baptist and Methodist churches. I shuddered at the immense wealth of the Catholic church and its grandiose cathedrals. And television ministries tell the ultimate lies to sucker people when they preach "seeding" one's way to heaven by paying funds up front to the slick TV preachers. It is everywhere and it all leads to ... no where.

A true prophet of God, then, will not ask for a donation or a tithe, which is actually a very private matter, a covenant, between a person and their God, and is not meant to fund any other person's lifestyle. ALL tithing, 100 percent of it, should go to a general fund to help those in need, period. No churches built, no missions funded and no corporate investments, the way the LDS (MORG) church has done by building shopping malls and other things on its way to becoming one of the top ten corporations in the United States. No, no and no.

Where, in ANY part of the gospel of Jesus Christ, is it written that he ordered churches to be built? Where in any part of his ministry did he ask for donations to feed or clothe his disciples or himself? Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you" and instructed people to love one another and to give alms to the poor, sick and unfortunate.

On the other hand, he clearly demonstrated that his Father's house of worship was not the place for business when he angrily threw out of the Jerusalem temple those who made profits from temple goers, and he compared a rich man getting into heaven to a camel getting through the eye of a needle. Any church that teaches that worldly wealth is a sign of God's approval or favor, then, is lying because of all the people who ever lived on this earth, surely the Son of God should have been graced with these "signs" of God's approval, n'cest pas?

Okay, I have ranted on long enough about this matter. I'll let Ralph Waldo Emerson, a much wiser and more astute student of human nature than myself, sum this all up:

We spend our incomes for paint and paper, for a hundred trifles, I know not what, and not the things of a man.

Our expense is almost all for conformity. It is for cake that we run in debt; 'tis not the intellect, not the heart, not beauty, not worship, that costs so much.

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32) By the same token, truth from God is given as a gift to all of mankind, and therefore should always be shared in the same spirit. We are told to let our lights so shine that all men and women can be enlightened. We are not to hide the light but "let it shine", as in "share it all." As sunshine is free for all to benefit from, so is the word of God, and ANYONE who makes a profit from that selfsame knowledge sent from God is not a true prophet, but a selfish, self-serving thief and a money changer grinding the faces of the poor.

Selah, and Amen, to Bro. Cahn and anyone else who profits from playing prophet.

Top Irrefutable Proofs that the Mormon Church Is a Hoax

I asked some other ex-Mormons what they thought were the TOP FIVE irrefutable proofs that the Mormon Church (aka Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) was a hoax. Former Mormons quoted below include Richard Packham, Nick Humphrey and Ed Bliss.

In my opinion, the top arguments are:
- Mormon scriptures are contradictory (see
http://packham.n4m.org/contra.htm%20/%20_blank )
- The church and its leaders are liars (see
http://packham.n4m.org/lying.htm%20/%20_blank ). According to scripture, God and
God's servants do not lie.
- Smith claimed he could translate Egyptian, but he couldn't (see
http://packham.n4m.org/tract.htm%20/%20BOA%20/%20_blank )
- Smith made major changes in revelations that had originally been
approved by God (see http://packham.n4m.org/tract.htm%20/%20BOC%20/%20_blank )
- Church leaders received no inspiration from God to let them know that
Mark Hofmann was a forger (see http://packham.n4m.org/tract.htm%20/%20HOFMANN%20/%20_blank )
- The Mormons cannot produce any contemporary corroboration for the
"first vision" (see http://packham.n4m.org/tract.htm%20/%20FV%20/%20_blank )

OK, that's six, but they are all solid.

Richard Packham
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. the Book of Abraham is proven to be a hoax by modern Egyptology scholarship
2. science has proven (a LONG time ago) that the human race is MUCH older than 6000 years, i.e. the story of Adam and Eve is a fairytale
3. the story of Noah and the world flood has been disproven by science, e.g. the Greenland ice sheet project
4. DNA research proves that Jews are NOT the principal ancestors of the native Americans as claimed by the church for over 180 years. the church changed this claim, i.e. changed the intro to the BOM in 2007 to "among the ancestors" (rewriting history. there are other examples of the LDS church rewriting history as well, including recently changing all original Book of Mormon phrases “white and delightsome“ to “PURE and delightsome“ so as not to offend dark-skinned peoples like African Americans and Native Americans.)
5. the majority of eyewitness accounts of the "translation" of the Book of Mormon tell of Joseph Smith putting his head inside his hat and reading words he says he saw on a seer stone, (note: there is no depiction of this in official church art) and the church never mentions this actual method of translation. It also never mentions in Jos. Smith church biography the fact that Joseph used to make money from other people by claiming to “find” things for them using a seer (or, “peep”) stone, like buried treasure and so forth.

By (Nick Humphrey)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
　The top three to five? Well, I could list several dozen, but the five I would select are:
1. The fact that Mormon doctrine cannot be found in the Book of Mormon. This is something most Mormons (and most critics of Mormonism) are not aware of, but it’s an “irrefutable” fact. 　For example: 　
What does the BoM say about pre-existence?... Nothing. 　
What does it say about 　the Three Degrees of Glory? ...Nothing. 　
About the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods? ...Nothing
About baptism for the dead? ...Nothing
About eternal progression? ...Nothing
About marriage for eternity? ...Nothing
About progressing in paradise? ...Nothing
About temple endowments? ...Nothing
About the trinity being three distinct beings? ...Nothing
2. The fact that after reading Emanuel Swedenborg’s “Treatise on Heaven and Hell” Joseph Smith announced a number of doctrines that Swedenborg had previously advocated, including such things as pre-existence, eternal progression, the Three Degrees, marriage for eternity, the existence of many worlds besides this one, continuing revelation, etc. This is more fully discussed in my book, “A Friendly Discussion.”
3. The Kinderhook plates. It’s an “irrefutable fact” that Joseph Smith was taken in by the Kinderhook hoax. The “Encyclopedia of Mormonism” admits that the plates were a “frontier hoax,” yet Joseph Smith announced they were authentic, and said they contained a record, in Egyptian, of “a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh the king of Egypt.” One of the plates was discovered in the Chicago Historical Society in 1920, and it certainly isn’t Egyptian!
4. The First Vision problem. The version contained in the Pearl of Great Price and in the preface to the Book of Mormon is quite different than the earlier versions, which didn’t even mention that God appeared along with Jesus. In fact, the earliest versions stated that his first vision was a visitation of angels. As the Assistant Church Historian has admitted, “...there was apparently no reference to Joseph Smith’s first vision in any published material in the 1830’s...” The story of the First Vision, so fundamental to Mormonism, was embellished and added to the Mormon canon long after the event was supposed to have occurred.
5. The missing women problem. Most Mormons are unaware that women are almost non-existent in the Book of Mormon. Only three are mentioned by name, and there is a period of more than one thousand years of history in the Book of Mormon without the mention of a single woman. A thousand years with no women! As I pointed out in my book, lengthy volumes have been published about countless women of the Bible, but everything that is known about the women of the Book of Mormon could be written on a Post-it note!
Well, that would by my list of the five most “irrefutable” problems with Mormonism, but it’s tempting to list many more, such as the false prophecies of Joseph Smith, the Book of Abraham, the DNA problem, the true story of the Three Witnesses, the “View of the Hebrews” question, the “internal contradictions” in the Book of Mormon listed by LDS historian B.H. Roberts, and many 　more.
Good luck with your discussions, Barbara. And I think you are on the right track, looking for “irrefutable” arguments instead of the strategy of ridicule that many ex-Mormons seem to favor.

Ed Bliss, author of “A Friendly Discussion: Mormonism Pro and Con”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If the church were true, it could withstand any and all scrutiny and would welcome a serious investigation. But the church leaders do not invite such scrutiny, and in fact, tells its members to stick to "faith promoting" sources only, as what is true is not necessarily helpful, to paraphrase the words of one of the church's top leaders.

While I am all for individual choice and religious freedom, I am also all for truth, and this organization is a prime example of an all-powerful body taking advantage of its members by concealing the whole truth from them or discouraging the members from researching church history and drawing their own conclusions. The church holds absolute sway over its members , rendering them into "sheeples" that is, meekly obedient flocks with no minds or original thoughts of their own.

All I expect from these writings, all I hope, is that I can encourage people to seek truth and be guided by it, as I was. There was no first vision, there were no golden plates, and there is no plan of salvation, or at least not as Joe Smith and the Mormons render it. Christ taught that the kingdom of God was within each person, not in a building or in another person's mind. All of us must find our own way to the next life alone, doing as little harm as possible to others while on our own journeys of self-discovery.

That is what I believe, at any rate. I hope you believe that you are just as free to find your own path to peace and enlightenment, and I wish you well on your journey.