Making Mormonism Indiscernible From a Fraud [Mormonism Live 179] 

I took an anthropology class in high school right when they were doing the Human Genome Project, and they had just discovered and published that Native Americans were actually from Asia and crossed the land bridge. I remember sitting in class going omg, the church is a lie. The BOM is literally a lie. That was the late '90s.

I didn’t realize this until someone made a comment during the live, but virtually every one of these requires apologists to disregard Joseph Smiths own claims. So we need to disbelieve Joseph’s words but cling tightly to his product.

Favorite quote: "They went from a falsifiable claim which then got falsified so they retreated to an unfalsifiable claim."

I've heard it claimed by faithful Mormons that the changes in the endowment are evidence of the "ongoing restoration". In response, I've asked why the "ongoing restoration" mainly consists of deleting things that previously were claimed to be key elements of the restoration. At that point, such faithful Mormons decide that they don't like me very much and don't want to throw their pearls at me or something like that.

Religion began when the first conman met the first fool. -- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Truth flows smoothly, lies are very turbulent.

David Bednar as an investment asset manager: "I know that you trust me to increase the value of your assets. But do you trust me to lose all of your assets? You need to expand the scope of your trust. It's a good thing. Trust me." Bednar's client: "Dave...what are you trying to tell me here?"

It’s amazing the apologists think they know more about Joseph Smith than what Joseph Smith knew about himself

Step 1) Make outrageous, very specific claims confidently Step 2) Smear critics Step 3) When critics are proven right, shift claim to something with more plausible deniability Step 4) If criticism continues to be effective, move further into more unprovable claim with more plausible deniability.

If dead prophets aren’t important, nothing Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and Gordon B Hinkley said matters. 😆

"It's a test of faith" is the unfalsifiable joker/wild-card in Mormonism that is most used as an all-purpose assertion to explain away any and every problematic feature of the faith. It always has the "side-effect" of making Mormonism indistinguishable from a fraud. Every time I hear it, it sounds to me exactly like someone yelling "PUNT!"

I thought of one. Spencer Kimball promised this in 1974 regarding Family Home Evening: “We cannot impress too much the importance of having family home evenings once a week . . . that you may be rewarded by a fulfillment of the promise that if fathers and mothers will discharge this responsibility, not one in a hundred of your family, as has been said by the leaders who have preceded us, would ever go astray.” I know families who held FHE every week (not mine). The activity levels in the family certainly don’t match his claim. So now the blessings associated with FHE are primarily spiritual.

I never really connected the dots, until now, when Bill mentioned how we are always taught that the BofM "was written for our time" but that the only time period it seems to address is 19th century issues. There is nothing in the BofM to address current issues such as racism, sexism, LGBTQ+, environmental, terrorism, gender inequality, climate crisis, housing crisis, income and educational disparities, and so on.

The only thing that comes to mind that the whole Q 15 said with a unified voice is, “LETS GO SHOPPING!!” 🤣🤣 thus saith the lord. 🤣🤣🤟🏼🙏🏻

Great show yet again

Excellent. You all do fantastic pod casts. Thank you.

The fact that grown men such as Ostler believes in and promotes this BOM expansion theory is mind boggling.

My interpretation of the show tonight would be: the apolegetic trend seems to be like a big wrestling match: for decades the apologists would go toe-to-toe with critics when facts and evidence seemed to be on their side. But inevitably, on issue after issue, the tide has turned and just as the apologist is ready to be pinned to the mat, he changes the game ("moves the goalposts") and retreats into the realm of Faith (well, we would like to prove the church true by conventional means of scholarship, logic & reason, but when that fails we can always retreat to the game of Faith alone as important--oh and by the way, we acknowledge that we really can't prove the church true through these conventional means). Thus, as the apologist moves from conventional tactics to establish truth claims, and moves back into the realm of Faith, he moves into a realm which is (unlike Science) literally UNFALSIFIABLE, and hence UNCRITICIZABLE. This stance is then held out as the only valid stance--the church leaders literally denigrate the pursuit of truth by "worldly" means, when obtaining truth by Faith and Testimony is so much more "certain." Of course this certainty is an illusion--but it keeps members safely "on shore." When I was young I loved to go to Disneyland. It's great fun for a days or a few days--but who would want to go live there for years on end? Because at the end of the day Disneyland is an illusion--it's entertainment, not the world of reality.

Amazing episode!! Way to pivot on the fly!! Can’t believe this was the back up!!🤣🤣🙏🏻😮‍💨🤌🏼🔥💪🏼🤟🏼🧙🏼‍♂️🧖🏼‍♂️🎊✨🕺🏼

I freaking love you guys. I bust up on my flight last night with your humor. I was hoping it would spark interest on my flight to Arizona. I'm sure it was talked about over dinner how this anti mormon was watching such stuff. Oh, it was worth it. You guys rule.

I absolutely love Bills use of the word Hence all the time. Reminds me of “The House Bunny” with Anna Ferris and Emma Stone

Great show! Thank You!

Bill- I understood the Junk Yard Dog and Jimmy ‘super fly’ Snooka reference! Not everything worthwhile is in Shakespeare🤣

One more comment: Hugh Nibley used to quote the "law of parsimony" alot in his writings. This I believe is similar to Occam's razor. I would interpret to mean that taken all the evidence and circumstances in the fairest light possible, that the theory that best fits the most evidence is probably the correct one. As Bill Reel would say: the theories that require more allowance and conjectures in order to adopt the theory are violating this law of parsimony, because one must move away from the more simple explanation for the evidence we have. For example, in relation to the 116 lost pages incident, it strikes me that we have an explanation in the Book of Mormon (God sees this coming thousands of years before so commands his prophets to make preparations to make allowance for an error Joseph Smith will make, and this is of course a great miracle). But it would make a lot more sense or God to warn off Joseph Smith from lending the manuscript to Harris. In fact God could say: if you give the manuscript to Harris you will lose your gift and I will effect the restoration through someone else. This would be the easiest way for God to get his point across to Joseph. Rather, the evidence appears to show Joseph Smith scrambling to repair the breach and clearly he doesn't know where the 116 pages are, whether they will reappear, etc. Even at this point, if Mrs. Harris had burned the manuscript (this is probably what she did), then how easy for God to tell Joseph Smith this--don't worry the manuscript is destroyed, you can proceed with starting the translation again. Instead, God prepares a very long-term "plan" to save Joseph Smith from himself. At any juncture Joseph Smith could have inquired through the seerstone, Urim & Thummin, etc as to the whereabouts or state of the 116 pages, but never seems to do this most obvious thing, and make this inquiry of God. Why not? Instead, Joseph Smith evidently believes it is possible that he will retranslate the beginning of the book, and then become embarassed and discredited if the original manuscript reappears, and there are significant contradictions between the two. This by applying the law of pasimony seems to be the simplest explanation of why Joseph is acting as he is in this incident.

Interesting and hilarious. Thanks

When marriage and children are promised in patriarchal blessings and for those who cannot for whatever reason then it will be in the next life. Goes from. A testable claim to untestable and indiscernible from a fraud.

Senine Theory - I've been reading Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary - you guys brought it up in this episode. I noted that Clarke changes "farthing" to "pound", without commentary or reason. The BoM seems to notice this and likewise makes a change to "senine".

Great show Bill and RFM. I think the apologetics on the Gold Plates is hilarious. I would assume that the metalergists from the 1800's would know the difference between Gold and Tumbaga. I say that, because besides Moroni saying the were gold plates, wasn't Joseph Smith also warned about using the plates to get gain or make his family rich. How could he do that with Tumbaga?

Russell and Dallin's new game, ... "Making Financial Fraud Indiscernible from Mormonism."

I have known since I was a young teenager that Joseph had to have stones to do what he did. In fact, I always thought he had to have brass balls.

Its called TACKING. Its a sailing term for maneuvering the craft according to the wind. The LDS church has been doing it forever.

Lol! They don't want the high council in the "excommunication court" anymore because too many of them qere being exposed to non-correlated ideas and leaving! 😂😂😂

When I was in the church, polygamy was still taught as an eternal principle that if I wanted to be in the "best" kingdom of heaven with my family (not single) I would need to abide polygamy.

I'm 36, born and raised in the church. JST was absolutely scripture and a more corrected translation than the KJV.

I like to picture Moroni with a string of Tapiers roped together like pack mules walking behind him carrying the (Not) Golden Plates...

Will we be seeing new paintings in LDS church's of JS head in a top hat soon

The Church has to maintain some kind of connection to Israel or their claim to be the new Israel chosen to build the New Jerusalem falls apart

Important detail internal to the Book of Mormon that debunks the tumbaga apologetic is that “gold” was referenced many times in the Book of Mormon to denotate a precious metal, a type of currency. Internally, the Book of Mormon does not support the tumbaga apologetic argument.

At this moment 6,335 views. Wishing the count was 6 million 335 thousand views demonstrating what a farce Mormonism is. 👏

This is why I still refer to them as Mormons and I NEVER use that crazy long title they started promoting a few years ago. It is pretentious at the least of it.

Thanks guys!

that endin was very funny right there. lol

i love it!

The MTC does not foster the gift of tongues. They've just adopted a quick & dirty way of getting someone to a functional level in 8-12 weeks. After finishing my mission and getting a bachelors degree in what was my mission language, I realized how full of crap some of the MTC language teaching methods were. We came out of the MTC with the ability to basically teach, but we had a lot of erroneous ideas about the language. I'm sure people must have had a hard time understanding us. It's also relatively easy to learn a language when you are young and your whole job is to have conversations with people all day.

Good old fashioned Mormonism live. Missed these style episodes

They moved the hill cumorah, and all the goal posts placed there on! 😂

"Living Prophets Trump dead prophets" 😅😅 Oh, the irony. Y'all are cracking me up.

One is crazy and one is really crazy? 😂 yes it is! I told my sister when I learned about the rock in the hat that if I were a non member and heard that story I would laugh them out of my house!

White and delightsome came immediately to mind. Backtracking on the racism in the book and the church is absolute BULL CRAP. Sorry.

Didn't President Kimball preach against the gift of tongues...in the MIracle of Forgiveness and many of his talks?

it strikes me that the problem with the Book of Abraham is the same problem Joseph Smith has with the Temple Endowment. Joseph, I think sincerely believes that he translated the Book of Abraham from the papyrus fragments (at least all the actual evidence points to this). Likewise, Joseph Smith sincerely believes that he is taking Masonry (descending from ancient times) and "restoring" a pristine version from a corrupted one. The problem in both cases is: if Joseph Smith is innovating from a false premise or understanding, why didn't God intervene and tell him that he was on the wrong track? Because it would have been very easy for God to say: "Joseph I appreciate your zeal here, but you are on the wrong track. Let me give you a direct revelation of a Book of Abraham (this would have let Joseph Smith off the hook for the false translation process he was beginning, and you wouldn't need a "hail-mary" catalyst theory to save Joseph Smith. Likewise, if Joseph was very impressed by Masonry, and started off wrong here (I think the evidence is clear that the Free Masonry he learned just doesn't have ancient origins--other than some of the symbols carrying forward from ancient times), how easy it would have been for God to correct Joseph and have him simply innovate an actual endowment from scratch. In so many cases, Joseph Smith seems to take a germ of an idea, and has a fabulous ability to innovate and expand it into a really big thing. When the modern leaders try to "walk back" these problems, they do an absolutely embarrassing (and false) retelling of our history, to pull Joseph Smith and former leaders out of the quicksand, and to try to save the integrity of Joseph Smith and these former leaders. This just is not working. Or, at least you can't save Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (and subsequent leaders) at the same time. When two sets of leaders say completely opposed things (such as teachings on Race) then logically they can't both be right. They might both be wrong. For example, my whole life I've heard the apolegetic that Masonry has a "parallel", or "influence upon" the LDS endowment. Or, as the church is still insisting: that the truths of the endowment were revealed prior to his "encounter" with Masonry. This downplaying of the role of Masonry is just silly, and is not completely truthful. Anyone who has compared the endowment side-by-side with Scottish rite Free Masonry, will see entire paragraphs and even pages of material taken from Masonry, and reconstituted into the LDS endowment. This is way beyond incidental "parallels" or "influence." This is Joseph Smith, evidently believing that much of Masonry is still gospel truth and he is restoring the endowment back to it's pristine state. At least that is the evidence that Joseph Smith is convinced that that is what he is doing.

Mormon doctrine Readers Digest version: Give us ten percent of your income for life, do what we tell you, work for us for free and we'll let you into our special heaven when you die. No refunds. Such a deal!

The intro to the B.O.M now states Lamanites are "among" the ancestors of the American Indian. But couldn't "among" still mean principal i.e. upwards of 50%, or even up to 99.9%?? Yes! While I naturally think of "among" as less than 50% (actually a very small number) it could mean anything. Conclusion: The church is still allowing orthodox believers to hang on to their original view of the majority of American Indian ancestry being Lamanite, and at the same time, allowing for a different view.

As one of your non-Mormon listeners I’ve said this before in many of your videos but it was listening to Mormon apologetics that convinced me that at worst apologetics is the art of defending the indefensible (or even straight up deception) and your content alongside Mormon Stories really helped me in my own deconstruction after leaving a pretty high demand Catholic community several years ago. Other religions like Catholicism and Islam get the benefit of being old and their exact origins being lost to the sands of time but Mormonism doesn’t get that benefit. According to the logic of “why would anyone die for a lie?” that many ex-Christians were told growing up many people did indeed throw away their lives for a fraud, mainly Joseph Smith and some of his followers who died on the way to Utah, and reading the Book of Mormon I thought it had shakier foundations that both the Bible and the Qu’ran so Mormonism should’ve never seen the light of day, let alone have millions of followers, if it was such an obvious fraud and Joseph was such an obvious false prophet as I thought when I was a Christian and yet it’s still very much there. Since I grew up in Mexico I’m probably a Lamanite according to the Mormon cosmology or at least the BoM, do they still teach that basically my ancestors were cursed with dark skin? As usual thank you for the content you’ve created.

The hill cumorah is just the same. All said its the place where millions did. Prpphet after prophet.for years..not now though!!!!

All of the fruits of living the gospel are unfalsifiable. The prosperity gospel is seen as evidence for the truth when a member is successful. However, if someone is met with hard times, it is either a test of your faith or evidence of your unrighteousness. With too many commandments for any person to follow, there is never a shortage of reasons that you are to blame, not the gospel. Likewise, a "righteous" leader is led by God and his guidance must be followed. His leadership and discernment is a fruit of the true gospel. But a leader who abuses children is not associated with the church, and is acting on his own so that the church is not to blame.

What about a deal? 'We'll give you the assumption of 'Long missing Scroll' if you give us the assumption of 'Manuscript Found' being a separate book as described. ( in case it's not obvious, I'm just highlighting the absurdity of truth-bending to protect the church, rather than suggesting this as a serious idea)

The live fast die young quote was from James Dean btw

I follow Harry, Harry Potter

This is not a condemnation but if we can know, just by the things that are known, why are there so many people still in the church?

The JST isn't canonized? WTF? Believing Mormons are sadly such easy prey for a convenient idea.

Maybe that's the reason that the prophets are always old as it gives the church a reason to change their minds about past revelations which dont go with current views

So, I assume Article of Faith 7 is no longer true, huh? What about the others now?

"Wicked web, deception galore, gas lighting pros. The TORAH clearly defines the definition of a true prophet and JS was not one.

I wonder how long it is going to be before the Mormon Church changes the meaning of "Prophet?" And, I am really curious how long it is going to be before the Mormon Church changes the meaning of "God?" Say it isn't so, Joe.

Well when you put it like that…tin foil hat is off🫣

Here is an interesting take on the preposterous “theory” of the church’s take on population bottleneck and genetic drift. Consider the fact that neanderthals went extinct roughly 40,000 years ago. Many modern Europeans have up to 4% Neanderthal DNA. That means it took 40,000 years with a number of humans breeding with each other and diluting their DNA to have a remaining of up to 4% Neanderthal DNA. The Lamanites (as well as the Jaredites and Mulekites) have a much lower bar to meet. If they in fact mixed with Native Americans then we would still see their DNA markers of Middle Eastern ancestors. But we find NO markers of any Middle Eastern haplotypes for ANY Native Americans. This is statistically impossible. There are two possible reasons for this. One, the BoM is false and there are no ancestors from the Middle East that immigrated here. Or two, they were all destroyed and never interbred with Native Americans and therefore they are not the “among” the principal ancestors and the church is either lying or willfully ignorant. Which seems more correct and likely?

And why would people be after the plates, to get rich, if they weren’t gold?

The gift of tongues just refers to learning foreign languages at the MTC? Unfortunately for this stupid apologetic, the Seventh Article of Faith written by Joseph in 1842 reads: "We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth." Speaking in tongues or "glossolalia" was part of the beliefs of early Christians as well as early Mormons. The Seventh Article of Faith was written well over 100 years before the MTC opened and before the church had any foreign language speaking missions. Brigham Young claimed that when he first met Joseph Brigham was speaking in tongues to an audience and when he finished Joseph told the audience that Brigham had been speaking in the pure Adamic language. Does anyone know if the MTC teaches the pure Adamic language?

Facts are irrelevant if you want to believe something.

When people like Muslims or mormons say that the original version of the Bible was lost and what they have is better. Where do they find the original version of the bible so that they can say their version is better, If you don't have a copy of the original version, then you don't know for a fact that its been changed. In fact, you have no evidence to suggest It's been changed, other than that it completely disagrees with your additions... so first produce the original version and then show me where the alterations are so that you can restore the original text.... If you can't do that then you've nothing but your imagination, both muslims and mormons do the same thing.

This church is involved with the monarch slave trade.

Wait, so are y’all atheist/agnostics now?

So I think you guys are finally getting there. Mormonism as it grows and learns and adapts..is becoming..unfalsifiable. So that would mean...no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater then. hmmm Another thing..you guys are fighting an organization that accepted its own revisionist history..not the organization that was original. Brigham's looked nothing like Josephs. Soon that will add more complexity....oh but the fun we will have lol. I love you guys work btw. I'm not joking so ty for it.

You people clearly have nothing better to do with your lives

It's hilarious-you guys are literally the "Mormons" now. You brand everything with the moniker. Ironic.

Why do you keep using AI? Unsubscribing