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)

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　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”

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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.

Despairing over job search

I have been fighting the tendency to despair after looking for work for more than six months.
I never thought I'd be this long without gainful employment when I decided to move from South Georgia to South Louisiana last year in order to be closer to my sons and granddaughters. Despite good references and a college education, I have applied for more than sixty jobs, all in vain, and it is beginning to affect my self-esteem in addition to wiping out my bank account.
What do you do after you've done all you can?
Any advice welcome, and the "To Hire" sign is still out. I am a hard worker, diligent and honest and easily trained. I have a Bachelor of Science in Education/Special Education, a 3.42 overall GPA and more than twenty years experience in office settings. I can do accounts payable, receivable, bank accounts, payroll and am a professional writer and assistant managing editor.
Anyway, best of luck to all of you other people looking for work. Here's hoping for a better, more prosperous year for us all.
(Addendum, 2-7-12: I have been offered a part-time position at a local library, beginning March 1, so that is a GOOD thing. I haven't worked in a library since third grade in Anacortes, WA, at Fidalgo Elementary School, but I liked it then and am sure I will like it now. Just hope those 20 hours a week will soon be expanded to 40, but in the meantime, thank you, thank you, Angelle Deshautelles and Ascension Parish Library, for giving me a chance to work again! It means so much to me and mine, and I'll do my best for the library, always ... blp)

The power of unconditional love

When a reporter asked billionaire Warren Buffett this week what he thought was the best advice he had ever received, he said it came from his father, who taught him how to l ive. He explained that all parents can make "a better human being" as follows:

"The power of unconditional love. I mean, there is no power on earth like unconditional love. And I think that if you offered that to your child, I mean, you're 90 percent of the way home. There may be days when you don't feel like it- it's not uncritical love; that's a different animal- but to know you can always come back, that is huge in life. That takes you a long, long way. And I would say that every parent out there that can extend that to their child at an early age, it's going to make for a better human being."

I realize that the advice of a billionaire is not exactly like gospel, but it sure is gratifying when the advice of a human so neatly segues with the example set before us in the Bible. I think of the Apostle Paul speaking about no power on earth or in hell being able to separate us from the love of God, and Christ's disciple John saying that those who love are born of God and know God, for God is love. The only thing that used to comfort me during hard times was this sustaining belief, that somehow, in spite of my insignificance to other human beings, after all of the meanness and cruelty I may have suffered at the hands of men, yet my God loved me always, and would one day take me home to live with Him. And the key to all of that was living my life as my Lord would have me live, and not be swayed or dismayed by the flesh and the devils that attacked me. It took many years to find my way to this particular truth, because I always deemed myself unlovable because of the way my parents treated me and my siblings. But many years later, I can even learn to love and forgive even them, no matter the damage they did to us.

I finally learned about unconditional love through my children, more through them than anyone else, because they needed me. By loving them without being critical, loving them each just as they were without demanding obedience to my will first in order to gain my love, this made all of the difference. Conditional love was all I had ever known from earthly family, I had to "earn" every bit of affection I ever got, and it was rare that I was ever praised any way. More often than not, I and my siblings were brutalized, mocked and shamed, sometimes for no reason at all, except that we were there for that purpose, I guess. We had no rights, no recourse and no advocate; we were at the mercy of a type of madness, I think. I guess I'll never fully understand, but I must let it go and forgive.

As a result, I tried to be for my children all that my own parents had failed to be for me. So it goes that today I was deeply gratified to find that my instinctive belief in loving my children the way I believe God loves me is validated in the life of another human being, even a rich and famous one like Buffett. We are all of us only human, after all.

"Love one another as I have loved you," Christ said, and so I shall always endeavor to do, not only showing unconditional love for my children and my husband, but for all of humanity and for this beautiful earth, our home.

Lesley of the Lion's Heart

Lesley is my only daughter and was born premature, low birth weight (about 2 pounds), the first of the twins (her brother was born 30 minutes later) and both have a form of autism known as Asperger's Syndrome.

She is 16 years old now and the bravest soul I have ever met.

Lesley attends the local high school but will never get a regular diploma because she cannot do high school math. She will receive a life preparation diploma, I think, after she does her 12 years but her dreams, her hopes of a future life, extend far beyond the limits of our small Southern city.

Lesley wants to travel the world, beginning with the United States. She researches various areas of the country and reports all of the attractions and features to me, puts photos of different places on her computer desk top and asks me what I think of them. She talks of sailing around the world in a one-person sail boat (with a small motor in case of dead calms) and she wants to live alone, with perhaps a friendly dog for company.

Lesley also has a knack for writing. She has written several long stories of at least 12 chapters about the adventures of various brave animals or people from another dimension. Lesley loves the characters of Severus Snape and Sirius Black in the Harry Potter series, as well as Strider (Aragorn) in "Lord of the Rings." Not having grown up with a father (I divorced him many years ago for his cruelty and lack of support) she instead created an idealized one for herself out of parts of these heroic figures. Her only friends are the ones she makes up inside her head. She is lonely and cries about not having real-life friends, but I tell her to find friends, you must first be a friend, so we are working on her "people" skills, how to make eye contact and smile and say "hello" appropriately.

Lesley also has a penchant for science, both biological and chemical, and would like to bring alchemy back to the realm of viable scientific research if possible (I tell her it is not but, oh well.) Bottom line, her imagination is great and flexible and expands her world much farther than her actual education will allow.

My quest is to help enable Lesley to reach some of those distant stars to which her imagination and interests incline. I cannot bring fictional characters to life but I can show her how to create some of her own and perhaps turn it into real stories that can be read by others (currently, all versions get shredded before I can read them.)

Or perhaps I can help her get the GED and continue her education in some real scientific field, like animal science or botany. Whatever I can do to help her, she deserves the very best I can offer so she can one day do her best on her own.

Robert Browning once wrote, " A man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?" Subsititute "girl's" for "man's" and there is my little Lesley, my only daughter and always my little girl. May God give me the strength and wisdom to help my daughter reach whatever heaven she desires. No one deserves it more.

Coping with Asperger's in SW Georgia

My twins were born 16 years ago, just before I turned 40. Both babies were premature, and of low birth weight (I could hold my 2 pound daughter in the palm of my hand.) They stayed in the hospital one week after birth to enable their lungs to develop a bit more, and then I took them home. Both qualified for WIC as I was the only parent working to support them. I divorced their father before they turned three due to his violent behavior which threatened both me and the twins.
Both children exhibited developmental delays very early on, especially my daughter, who easily qualified for SSI by the time she was four due to speech problems. However, my son, her twin, did not qualify although his behavior was far more uncontrollable. The SSI psychiatrist (the one who worked for Social Security) misdiagnosed him as having juvenile bi-polar disorder (an almost unheard-of diagnosis). I had to pay for his medicines out-of-pocket for several years, as SSI does not cover bi-polar disorder.
Frustrated, I finally, I took him to a juvenile psychiatric specialist in Thomasville who correctly identified my son’s disorder as Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning type of autism and she asked to see his twin. The minute my daughter walked into the office, the doctor said she exhibited even more symptoms of Asperger’s than my son did. Both children qualified for SSI after that.
Being qualified to receive SSI insurance and payments however, does not guarantee delivery of services to treat the disorder. Here in South Georgia, both twins were placed in special education courses, but because my son’s behavior was more violent and disruptive, he was placed in a separate classroom with behavior disordered children and was exposed to even more violent behaviors than even his disorder warranted. When he could no longer be contained in this classroom, he was moved to another school in the same area before being permanently moved to a school for behavior disordered children in a neighboring county. He was contained there for two and a half years and was supposed to be receiving home visits from “specialists” … we went through four such specialists who visited my son twice each in our home and never returned.
All the while that I was trying to get someone to educate my son- with poor to non-existent results – he was seeing a psychiatrist at the local government health clinic whose solution to my son’s behavior problems was to give him increasingly powerful anti-psychotic medications, some of which had fatal side effects if not monitored closely. When I realized, after about four years of these visits, (where I was not even allowed to ask the doctor questions, had even been told that he “did not have time to listen” to my concerns) I summarily removed my son from all medications as I feared they were doing more harm than good.
Over the last three years, since I removed my son from medications, he went through puberty and twice I involved local public safety to remove him from my home due to the nature of his threats … but I will never do so again as both times he was locked up in an institution in mid-Georgia where both times he was brutalized (beaten only, thank God) by more powerful and disturbed teenagers than himself. I have since kept my son home and he receives no schooling at all, but I cut a deal with the local Juvenile judge to home school my son and at least his is not in a public school system where he could hurt someone else.
I still have hopes that my son – who is now six feet two inches tall and weighs 250 pounds-, will outgrow some of his behaviors and indeed I can see where some progress has been made. But his whole world revolves around a 10 foot by 10 foot square bedroom where he has his computer, a TV and his video games. There is no contact with other children, he has no “off-line” friends and his education stopped more than a year ago when he flatly refused to do any of the assignments I gave him.
Still, I do not want m y son at the mercy of the “system” … I do not want his civil rights violated and I do not want him hurt. I feel I am doing my best to protect him from others and from himself, and I hope that one day I can find a place where he can go to day school, earn his GED and come home to me at night, perhaps learn to drive a car and get a little job to make some spending money.
My daughter is in high school now, but will never graduate as she cannot do math. I hope to get her into GED classes so she can get her driver’s license and perhaps get a job, as well. She has big dreams of moving out on her own and making enough money to travel but I will be glad if she can just get a local job and come home to me every day where I know she will be safe. She is far too trusting and I am afraid someone will hurt her or take advantage of her, although her social skills are a good bit better than her brother’s.
I know I will have to take care of my twins in some capacity for the rest of their lives, but sometimes it gets hard trying to be everything to them. I have had no help from the local school system for Dale, for sure, and there are no programs in this area of the state for children with autism. (The closest “school” is in Atlanta and yes, I could probably apply and let him go there, but he would be so far away I would not be able to see him or make sure he is OK.)
My next step will be to apply for help from the Vocational Rehab center in hopes that I can get some job training for the twins after they get GEDs, and maybe the center can help place them in jobs, as well. I only hope it will improve their quality of life and give them opportunities that the public education and health systems here never did.

More Snippets of Truth

Here are a few more snippets of truth to nourish the burgeoning skeptic within me:

"It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it." - Edwin Way Teale (1889-1980), Circle Of The Seasons, 1953

"Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck." - Thomas Jefferson

"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." - 1 Thessalonians 5:21

"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man" - Bertrand Russell

"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing." - T. H. Huxley

“Faith, as well-intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction- faith in fiction is a damnable false hope.” Thomas A. Edison

“Let us accept truth, even when it alters us and changes our views.” George Eliot

"While spiritual insight or faith is one valid measure in spiritual matters, true spiritual insight never directly contradicts valid intellectual insight or facts in the physical world. Faith may go beyond reason, but does not go against it. It never blatantly contradicts the facts which we perceive with our God-given common sense. Faith and fact point in a single direction. When they do not, something is seriously wrong…A willingness to accept facts as they exist, and to learn to use them to test the views one holds rather than falling back on subjective experience or rationalizations, is the first step towards discovering genuine truth." (Charles Larson, By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus, pp. 177-178)

"A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows." - Mark Twain

"I am surer that my rational nature is from God, than that any book is an expression of his will." - William Ellery Channing

"Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth." - Ludwig Borne

"There's a difference between faith in an area where the evidence is lacking, and denial in an area where the evidence is copious but against you." -Baura

Link to an article from The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry site, Why Bad Beliefs Don't Die.